


what's the harm?

by pahdme



Category: Naruto
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, BAMF Haruno Sakura, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Gratuitous Banter, Humor, Infidelity, Modern AU, Multi, Or Is It?, PWP, Polyamory, Sexual Tension, Unrequited Love, and, anyway, because i don't trust myself lol, devious married couple, everyone is in a band, hehehehe, i got a plot line but can't say how long this will stretch, idk how long this will be, lots of swearing, more love for genma, no beta we die like men, not a love triangle because eventual polyamory, or is it???, sakura is GETTING it, yes more for this ot3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:55:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 39,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23121328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pahdme/pseuds/pahdme
Summary: “Oh, now you’re shy? That’s rich,” Sakura scoffs and rolls her eyes hard for him to see before she waves him in with an annoyed click of her tongue. “Genma, just get in here, don’t act like you’ve never seen a naked woman before.”“Sure have, but not my best friend’s wife.”a new kakashi/sakura/genma fic, where everyone is in a band and it’s very #unrequited love #… or is it? — lots of humour, sexual tension, gratuitous banter, smut and a sprinkling of angst. buckle in kiddos, this is a ride
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Hatake Kakashi, Haruno Sakura/Hatake Kakashi/Shiranui Genma, Haruno Sakura/Shiranui Genma, eventual haruno sakura/hatake kakashi/shiranui genma
Comments: 122
Kudos: 271





	1. between you and me

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO!
> 
> i feel so fucking giddy uploading this. this ot3 has officially taken over my life and i can't guarantee if i'll ever write for another pairing again, so buckle in!
> 
> y'all have no idea what this chapter does to me. i've been sitting on this story for a month before i managed to come up with proper plot and now i was FINALLY struck by muse and i hope you have as much fun reading this as i did writing it!
> 
> if you've come here from either bite of lightning or between sin and sense, fear not, i'm not abandoning any of my other work. this is just another addition to the family <3
> 
> as always, reviews make my absolute day and they really really give me drive to continue writing; so please share your thoughts with me!! i'm just as happy over critical reviews as i am over praise. or emojis. or plain copy pasting your favourite lines without comment.
> 
> seriously, just talk to me, i'm grateful for all of you 🥺
> 
> *****************
> 
> now enjoy, my filthy angels
> 
> ETA: hello i posted this at 10pm, it's now 5AM and i went back in and edited a bunch for smoother reading, jsyk

The bolt of the front door slides open with a rattle and a hefty smack. Deeper inside the apartment Kakashi raises his hand, bidding silence to fall over the living room immediately. He doesn’t need to listen closely though, as the door slams shut so heavily it shakes the picture in their frames. Between the banging of shoes being flung at the wall, he hears muffled, but certainly _furious_ , cursing.

“Hey babe, you’re home early,” he calls out tentatively, trying to gauge the extent of his wife’s rage.

The answer is something he can only describe as an angry non-verbal roar. A worrying sound, considering the person it comes from.

“How did it go with your mom?” The question is purely rhetorical.

“That woman is a _menace!_ ” Sakura booms angrily, punctuating the words with her steps as she stomps down the hall. The living room stays tersely silent, already anticipating that this is barely the start to the hurricane brewing inside her.

“I really tried to be _so_ damn civil in the beginning,” she hisses in unison with the whoosh of the kitchen door being thrust open. The quickly following intense screeching of the cabinet doors gives Kakashi reason to worry, that she may have just ripped them straight off the hinges in her rage. Sakura dispels that fear swiftly though, by banging them deafeningly loudly back into place. Maybe a little crooked, but still in place. “I listened to her rag on her neighbour, the waitress, everyone and their mother really. Even her sister! And, you know, I stayed fucking nice. I really did, but she was _relentless,_ Kakashi.”

The cork of the wine bottle squeaks pathetically as she brutally forces the corkscrew into its heart.

“She kept yapping on and on _and on_ about your job and... it just got so under my skin! Then— ”

_Pop!_ The bottle is open and the corkscrew clatters promptly in the sink. More cabinet doors are ripped open and banged shut, before a glass slams on the counter. Did she splinter that?

In the living room a communal breath is held, as all band members currently gathered on the couch and arm chairs exchange terrified glances. No one dare speak up or interrupt her – not even Kakashi.

The story has got their undivided attention though. Albeit terrifying, the delivery has a certain charm to its vigour. It is undeniable that curiosity, too, is a supporting character to their stillness.

Through a deep breath that reaches into every corner of her lungs, Sakura seems to gain new wind now though, as she lets out a fresh sound of wordless frustration.

“ _Then_ things just fucking escalated. One thing led to another and— ” She stalls a little and seems to mess with the corkscrew again, before she confesses, “And I yelled at her, in front of the _entire_ café, mind you, that I would... Well, that I would fuck the whole band on her dining room table if it gave her a heart attack like she promises!”

As if on cue, every single pair of eyes staring at each other, in the room on the other side of the wall, grows to the size of moon. _Did they just hear her right?_

Kakashi’s eyes are the only ones that snap shut tightly, and he looks like he got hit square in the face with a migraine as his forehead meets his palm.

When the first shock wears off after the first couple seconds, Genma has to bite into his fist in all earnest to hold back the snort and laughter threatening to burst forth from his lungs like candy from a piñata.

“Uh, Sakura—” Kakashi tries to cut her off again, if to spare himself or her further embarrassment he isn’t sure, but she bellows back without hesitation.

“I’M NOT DONE YET!”

Instead of further angry abuse of their furniture, the gentle sound of tortoiseshell buttons hitting the tile now accompanies the absent murmur traveling to the living room, “Man, I need to get out of these clothes. Why is it so damn hot in here?”

Kakashi groans. He knows exactly what’s happening on the other side of the wall, because this is what _always_ happens.

Her fury works like a furnace inside her, and overheats her to the point of a flush. It’s practically ritual for her by now, to strip all the offending, prim and proper clothing she dons for her mother, as soon as she comes home after meeting with her. 

Again, he tries to interject hastily, “Sakura, really—”

But she’s had it today and her palm bears down with the weight of the earth on the counter.

“Kakashi, just let me get this _fucking out!_ Whatever you wanna tell me can _wait!_ ”

His eyes slide shut again and his face sinks back into his palms. Her tone leaves no room for discussion. “Oh, I’m gonna pay for this,” he mutters more to himself than to his company.

In the kitchen a thick _glug glug glug_ can be heard, and judging by the sounds that preceded this, Sakura poured herself a _very_ full glass of wine. _As she deserves_.

Once her voice sounds again, it moves and it gains proximity _fast_. Kakashi watches the doorway, inwardly counting down from ten to his doom.

“Before I left, she had the fucking gall to say my daddy would roll in his grave if—”

The sentence breaks off abruptly when she rounds the corner to the living room. A piercing shriek of surprise puts a swift end to the ugly tale of her luncheon with the dragon lady. Sheepish and faux innocent, the faces of her husband and his band members stare wide eyed up at her.

Cursing like a sailor Sakura attempts to cover up poorly out of instinct, but she has barely more than her wine glass and her other arm to cover her chest clad in mint green lace-adorned lingerie.

Kakashi has no chance to apologize; before everyone can really gather their wits, Genma grins wide and the toothpick between his teeth twirls.

“So, was that an offer earlier?”

Yamato lets out a strained groan and averts his eyes even further away from Sakura, down to the stained wood coffee table, as if he took on Genma's lacking shame. Deeply disappointed on the other hand, Iruka shakes his head and imitates Kakashi’s earlier motions as his forehead drops into his palm with a slap.

Both as friend and husband, Kakashi strikes him with a withering glare and his voice drops a whole octave as he warns, “Genma.”

Quick-witted and characteristically forceful Sakura reacts faster than all of them however, and in the blink of an eye the vase closest to her shoots across the room like a missile.

“Shut it, Shiranui,” she grinds dangerously through gritted teeth and Kakashi takes this as his cue to start composing his atonement plea.

“I'm so sorry, I should’ve said something earlier,” he starts apologetically, soothingly, but he is immediately silenced when she directs her attention to him. Her viridian irises glare daggers and he can't blame her. As if it would help anything, he swiftly rises to his feet to catch her face in his hands for a placating kiss, but she sees through his cheap ploy and shakes him off before she moves to the coffee table.

Modesty has left the chat and Sakura drops her arms as she places her wine glass on the coffee table. She reasons with herself at this point, that the guys have seen her in less clothing before - on vacation and past concerts - and that, to be quite honest with herself, she’s had too tough of a day to give a fuck.

Similarly, she doesn’t give a fuck about smoking tonight either and steals one from Kakashi’s pack. At once he protests, but his voice is still soft as he chides, “Sakura, c’mon, you wanted to stop.”

“Kakashi, I am not in the mood. Just leave it,” she snarls and turns her back to him demonstratively. Both Iruka and Yamato shift in their seats uncomfortably; they've got front row seats to this lover's quarrel and frankly, the show sucks.

Leaned deep into the armchair, Genma however is caught between a rock and a hard place. Sakura is now facing him straight out and involuntarily his eyes keep being drawn to where fabric meets soft skin, where her frame gives way to curves, like her body's a magnet and his eyes plain metal. He knows it’s wrong. He knows he shouldn’t. And he really _does_ try his hardest to avoid outright ogling her, but it’s compulsory; something ugly inside him eradicates all his decency. He can’t help himself and sneaks glances, praying silently for neither her nor Kakashi to notice. Or at least for none of them to call him out on it.

But Kakashi is only focused on his wife, running his knuckles gingerly down her upper arm as he tries to catch her eye.

“Do you want me to kick them out?” He asks her carefully.

She lights the cigarette and shakes her head.

“No, don’t worry about it,” she waves off, much cooler now, and he doesn't object when she gives him a light shove that pushes him back into the cushions he occupied before. Sakura is both soft as she is terrifying like this. Like a storm cloud rolling down into the valley from the hills. Will she drown them in her downpour or bless them with bountiful crops?

Picking her wine glass back up, Sakura moves again. She squeezes through the space between Genma’s arm chair and the side table of the couch, obviously headed back for the hallway, and consequently for the bedroom at the other side of the apartment. The drummer bites down hard on his toothpick when she halts mid movement. 

Twisting in her spot, she turns back to Kakashi, “Honey? Keep your boy band out of our bedroom please, I’m taking a bath.”

Like the good husband he is, he nods obediently and ignores the huffing and puffing protests of his band mates at her choice of words.

Pleased, his wife nods. All is settled, but Kakashi doesn't dare relax just yet. And for good reason. Before she continues her retreat, she turns further. The whole room watches with bated breath as Sakura drops her barely lit cigarette in Genma’s beer bottle. To his exasperated ‘ _hey!_ ’ she slaps the back of his head and hisses, “Watch your mouth.”

* * *

Sakura lost track of time but if she had to guess, it’s probably been around forty minutes since she's settled into the steaming heat of her tub first, and another ten since she topped the tepid water off with fresh, _hot_ water. She'll soak in here until her skin falls off or Kakashi comes to get her. As if on cue, she hears the creak of the parquet, when the bedroom door opens and someone enters. Drowsy and far more relaxed than when she came home, she smiles at the thought of her husband checking in on her.

“‘Kashi?” She calls out affectionately through the half open door to the bedroom; her voice is soft as the candle glow lighting up the bathroom.

Genma freezes up ramrod straight in his spot, in front of the small shelf chock full of records. His heart stutters and so does his breath at first, before he clears his throat awkwardly, “Uh no, it’s me. Genma.” When silence greets him, he remembers her plea to her husband earlier and adds quickly, “Sorry. I know you said to Kakashi to not let anyone in here, but he sent me to get this record.”

At his explanation Sakura groans in annoyance and Genma runs a hand over his face, uneasily passing the toothpick from side to side in his mouth. _Uncomfortable_ doesn't even come close to describing his sentiments in that moment. It’s barely a silver lining when Sakura eventually calls back, “Whatever, just don’t come in here.”

Swallowing, Genma doesn’t answer and simply hopes that she understands his silence for acknowledgement. He has no voice to speak right then anyway. His heartbeat thunders in his ears as he listens for her to say something, but she seems content with the situation for now, and so he goes back to looking for the album again. A little blinder and with shaky hands but he finds what he's looking for soon enough.

His treasure secured, he’s right about to leave. With fast steps he approaches his escape, the ajar door to the hall, ready to get as far away as possible from the bathroom, and most of all from _her. A naked, wet and sinfully torturous her._

He is almost out the door, when Sakura calls out again, “Hey, Genma?”

Once more, he freezes in mid motion. His hand on the doorknob trembles; he was so close to being free, now he’s trapped and taut as a bow.

_Stay cool, Shiranui. What’s the worst that can happen?_

His lungs stretch painfully in his chest as he takes a deep breath, blowing it out like a bull through his nose, slow and controlled, before he responds evenly, “Yeah?”

“Could you fetch me the bottle of wine?” When he doesn’t answer right away, her voice softens, “Please, my glass is empty and I had a seriously shit day.”

It has the desired effect; Genma’s heart aches and he rests his forehead to the wood of the door in defeat. In silent vowels he sends a quick prayer to the heavens to not smite him for anything happening past this point and gulps down another deep breath.

“Sure.”

It seems that Genma has become pious in an instant. If any deity even listens to him after his life of sin and blasphemy he doubts, but it doesn't hurt to try. With every step toward the kitchen and back to the bedroom he both prays that Kakashi will swoop in, to save him from something dangerous, and he prays that he won't. That his best friend will be far away from his slippery path. That he will let him have just this; whatever _this_ is.

He can’t decide which scenario would be worse, but time flies and now he’s back within minutes with the bottle.

In front of the bathroom he hesitates. The sight of her renders him immobile and his brain has trouble computing exactly _what_ he's about to do right now. Through the purposeful crack of the door he can see her up to the shoulders submerged in the claw footed tub; her hair is pulled up into messy curls atop her crown with a crocodile clip and her arm hangs lazily over the rounded edge of the porcelain. She’s still wearing all of her jewelry, and Genma can see exactly how it twinkles against her wet skin in the flicker of the candles. Inwardly he dies a million deaths in the split of a second.

“Um...”

“Oh, now you’re shy? That’s rich,” Sakura scoffs and rolls her eyes hard for him to see before she waves him in with an annoyed click of her tongue. “Genma, just get in here, don’t act like you’ve never seen a naked woman before.”

Obediently, like Kakashi, he does as she says but he pointedly avoids meeting her eye or even glancing her way at all. As if to reassure himself of his usual confidence he tries to grin, but it’s miles from his usual smirk.

“Sure have, but not my best friend’s wife.”

Lenient and kind, she honours his discomfort with a sigh. The bubbles make a crackly sound when she leans over the side of the tub and hides her bare chest through the motion. To be fair, she does it both to grant him the ability to look her in the face _and_ to pick up the glass she set down next to the tub.

Her tongue stays sharp as knives however, and her next words crack like a whip, “That didn’t stop you from ogling me in the living room earlier either.”

At once he burns with shame and it’s visible. Sakura must admit, she finds the blush charming.

“That was different,” he defends, but she just cocks her brow at him as she raises the glass for him to pour.

“How so?”

Genma kind of feels the need to sit down. Her presence in itself makes him dizzy and the steaming bathroom doesn't help with that. Really, he should get out, because even if she’s hiding her chest, with the view he’s got of her ass through the suds and bubbles, things are bound to get awkward real fast.

Even more awkward than they are already, but Genma realizes quickly and mildly anguished, that they now have a conversation going, and something instinctual tells him Sakura needs to talk.

With a sigh he takes the glass from her outstretched hand and sits down on the plush bath mat next to the tub. His back leans to its sidewall and he pulls in the knee away from her, while he pours. 

“Because Kakashi was there,” he explains then, matter of factly, before handing her the glass. Her soapy fingers brush his as she takes it from him, and even if her skin is wet, he feels struck by lightning by her touch. Her eyes meet his then and they are so perfectly bright green and warm, his heart palpitates for a handful of beats.

At his explanation though, she frowns.

“What does that change?”

Genma sighs again and helps himself to a long drag from the bottle. Sakura doesn’t object, this obviously seems difficult for him, and instead joins in by sipping on her own glass.

“Because he knows I looked and could’ve told me off.”

At that she frowns even deeper, “And you think I won’t tell you off?” For good measure she frogs him in the shoulder and the water splashes. Sakura’s knuckles are hard as diamonds and Genma is sure he’ll have a bruise in the shape of them by tomorrow.

“Easy there, Rocky, that’s not what I meant,” he defends but they both have to laugh, and he shakes his head before redirecting his gaze to the stain in his jeans on his knee. After a moment of silence, he exhales heavily and waves it off. “Ah, forget it, I can’t explain it.”

At that her eyes grow soft again and she swings her glass by the top between her fingertips.

“No, I get it.” Her words catch his attention at once and his eyes tentatively wander back up to hers. He'd rather they hadn't. Her gaze is penetrative and goose bumps spread from his chest to his arms.

“This is private,” she says, and gestures with the glass between them. He swallows, but Sakura doesn't see. She drinks and then nods her head toward the door, toward the living room. “Out there, it’s between you and Kakashi.”

Genma doesn’t know if he wants to hear her next words; he’s afraid he might never forget them if she speaks them aloud. But Sakura is ignorant to his fears.

“In here, it’s between you and me.”

_Bullseye._ Genma doesn’t know what to say. He knew it, this will haunt him. Something about the way she said it, _between **you and me** ,_ rearranged his lungs and his guts, and struck his heart still in his chest.

“Sakura...” He starts, unsure of what he’s even going to say next. Maybe apologize? It kind of is about gawking at her, after all. Yeah, he feels like he should probably apologize.

But she beats him to the punch and grins, shoving his face away softly by his temple. All he can feel though is her wet fingers in his hair.

“It’s cool, Genma, don’t worry about it.”

Numbly he nods, and forces a smile to smooth the lingering uncertainty in his chestnut eyes. After they both take a long sip from their drinks, he gathers his courage and turns back to her, sensing that she still has got more simmering in her chest. Genma wants to change the topic desperately anyway.

“So your mom’s a real piece of work, huh?”

Sakura laughs and groans equally; a sound that does things to him he dare not name.

“Oh you have _no_ idea.”

Sakura pours her heart out to him. As she words vomits everything wrong with her mother and their relationship, she learns that Genma is a surprisingly good listener. A good conversationalist, too.

She talks until the bottle is empty, and then some. By the time there’s a lull in their conversation and Sakura has no more grief to spare, his limbs are stiff and the water in the tub is cold.

No longer dizzy and much more at ease, Genma is the first to stir from their trance. Rigidly he stretches and shakes out his legs, catching Sakura’s eye in the process when he notices her watching.

“I should go, I already stayed way longer than I should’ve. I’m sure Kakashi is already wondering if I’m scrubbing your back in here.” He laughs eben if the double entendre isn't particularly funny, but when Sakura doesn’t join past a small chuckle, the sound dies in his throat and he moves to get up.

She stops him mid movement with a hand on his shoulder and he freezes instantly. _Again._ This seems to be her superpower; he could be a freight train and she’d stop him dead in his tracks.

“Hey, Genma?”

“Yeah?”

The only sound following, is the sloshing of water as she moves close to him and the thundering of blood in his ears. Her other hand comes to rest on the side of his head and she pulls him in, to place a soft lingering kiss atop his crown.

“Thanks for listening,” she whispers into his warm brown locks before she pulls back entirely from him. “You’re actually pretty sweet under all that womanizing himbo exterior.” To underline her point, she points to his toothpick. “That really needs to go.”

“Never,” he grins back at her and Sakura’s heart swells. Slowly the grin softens and in the end he just smiles. Genuinely, despite her little jab.

Aside from his heart beating like a jackhammer against his ribs, the moment feels light and nothing can take that from him.

But Sakura wouldn’t be Sakura if she left it at that, and she slaps his shoulder again, “Alright, now get out. I’m fucking freezing.”

“ _Oh, now you’re shy?_ ” He mocks by repeating her own words back to her with a laugh, and Sakura shoves his shoulder hard.

“Beat it, Shiranui!”

* * *

When Genma returns back to the living room, the place is empty bar for Kakashi reading contently on the couch.

“The hell, where is everyone?” Genma frowns, and for a split second he’s afraid Kakashi made everyone leave, just so he could kick his ass in peace.

“Kicked them out,” Kakashi deadpans lightly, not even looking up from his book. “How’s my wife?”

Genma’s heart is beginning to feel weak with how many times it’s come to a dead stop that night.

He doesn’t answer at first, unsure _how_ to do so exactly, and so he just awkwardly shuffles his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other.

At his silence Kakashi directs his attention away from the pages and looks at him over the edge of the book. To Genma’s relief, his charcoal eyes are mild and crinkle with a knowing smile.

“Better, I think,” the drummer answers then, exhaling a long breath, he didn’t realize he was holding.

Kakashi shuts his book and grins, “Good. I think she really needed someone to talk.”

If Kakashi wasn’t always somewhat of an unpredictable prick, Genma might think he was drunk. But even knowing better, this is all starting to feel a little too twilight zone-y for his taste and a little suspiciously he scowls at Kakashi.

“She did. But why wouldn’t she talk to you?”

“Because I’ve heard it too many times. There’s only so many ways you can politely say ‘Your mom’s a dried up cunt’.”

They exchange a long quiet glance before both burst into a hearty laugh and mutually agree on the sentiment. Just like that, every bit of remaining tension in Genma falls away like ice off a roof in spring. At last he feels like he can breathe fully again.

“Fair enough,” he nods, still chuckling here and there, and runs a hand through his hair. This evening has been a rollercoaster and he’s beginning to feel exhausted from all the emotional turmoil.

“It’s pretty late, I better get going,” he concludes eventually and Kakashi nods before escorting him to the door like a good host.

They say their goodbyes and Kakashi shuts the door behind him with a click. Only a few moments pass before he hears soft foot steps come up behind him and slim arms snake around his waist.

He throws his wife a grin over his shoulder and is greeted by a similarly devious twinkle in her eye.

“So, what do you think?” He asks and now Sakura grins wide.

“I think we got him hooked.”


	2. good company

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> um, so i know i only posted the first chapter like 1.5 days ago but i cannot help myself
> 
> i never meant for this story to exceed like 5 or 6 chapters but now i have a timeline written down for 13 and uh whelp. i need to purge all these ideas from my head while new ones keep coming in!
> 
> gotta strike the iron while it's hot, ya feel me?
> 
> speaking of hot,,,, 
> 
> enjoy 👀
> 
> (i promise the next chapter will earn this e rating)

The scenery flits past them in a flurry, and the sun rises high in the cloudless sky as sycamores and pines give way to palms and beaches.

Her coffee is lukewarm in her mug, but Sakura holds onto it steadily, almost cradling it in her hands; it feels like a memento from times gone by. When they really needed this van to lug the band with all their shit around, from pitiful gig to gig, and didn’t just keep it for old times’ sake.

Sometimes she still can’t quite believe, that she is not the groupie to some bad amateur band anymore, that plays for beer and fries in cheap dive bars all across the state. But that she is now actually the wife to the front man of a somewhat successful rock band, taking a collective vacation prior to their second national tour. _Time sure flies._

Yet some things _never_ change. Like the beaded, tacky seat cover of the passenger seat or Kakashi at the wheel beside her, humming along to the broken stereo that plays the same damn CD for the past six years.

* * *

“He’s in love with you,” he says around noon. “ _Really_ in love with you.”

She shoves her shades up her head and replies neutrally, “I know.” 

A pause.

Then there's the sound of fabric rustling and the wooden clicking of the protective cover's beads sliding against each other, when she twists in her seat to look at Genma, sleeping like a rock in the back of the van with his beanie pulled over his eyes. He doesn't see, but her eyes grow soft with fondness and her blooming grin exposes all her pearly white teeth.

“Does it bother you?”

Kakashi follows her warm green gaze, and chances a glance over his shoulder at his best friend before he laughs, “No.”

His wedding band glints bright gold when it catches the light of the hot summer sun as he rests his hand atop the steering wheel. Then, he grins too and adds, “I mean, I get it.”

Sakura snorts and boxes his shoulder.

“Watch the road.”

* * *

Genma emerges from the surf like Apollo from his chariot; wet and bronze from head to toe and a divine sight to look at.

Sakura is glad for her pitch black sunglasses. They block out her hungry stare easily and allow her to pretend to keep reading her magazine in peace as she ignores how sticky her itsy bitsy bikini bottom is growing.

To any bystander the blush-haired woman looks passive, positively disinterested. She doesn’t even seem to spare the sparkling ocean a glance, much less the hunk of a guy shaking out his dripping wet brunette hair.

But her husband knows better.

He knows the restless twitching of her leg that makes the bracelet on her ankle tinkle with its charms, before she crosses her legs and shifts in her seat. He also knows the way she bites on the inside of her cheek ever so lightly to avoid openly biting her lip. And he knows the stuttered rise and fall of her chest, hidden well behind her magazine held high. Above all, though, he knows her scent. Kakashi can smell her; even through the scent of saltwater and sunscreen.

Thick droplets from his soaking wet hair make her flinch as they hit her shoulder but his voice at her ear both soothes and fans the already glowing embers in her belly.

“Do I still turn you on like that?”

Sakura grins and allows herself to bite her plush bottom lip now.

“Apples and oranges, Kakashi,” she replies honestly, without missing a beat, and Kakashi laughs. Sakura neither sees nor hears.

Still hidden behind her sunglasses her eyes stay locked on Genma, and her spouse takes this opportunity to ghost an open mouthed kiss on the heated skin of her neck.

Her head lolls to the side immediately like a rag doll’s; chasing the delicate feeling by granting him easy access and her eyes flutter closed with a sigh. She doesn’t notice the sunglasses sliding down her nose or her wet lips parting softly. A low hum escapes her chest easily, so full-bodied that it vibrates through her spine. Already on edge her thighs rub subtly together in a feeble effort to provide at least _some_ friction.

It’s of no use though, and she means to look to her husband for aid, but when she blinks against the sun again, the first thing that catches her eye is _him_.

Genma is still in conversation with Iruka, whose tan back is turned in ignorance to the two of them, but Genma’s dark eyes are trained on her. Is it just her or are they practically ebony now, opposed to their usual chocolate tone?

Their gazes lock steadfast as Kakashi continues to kiss and caress her neck and shoulders, but Genma sees nothing but green.

Not the way she crinkles the magazine in her taut grip, or her other hand sliding shakily into Kakashi’s dripping wet hair, burying itself at the roots.

Just green. Hot, dark, burning, pine green.

Her eyes spell _heat._

Immediately his throat feels dry as the desert surrounding Suna, and despite being cooled down from the ocean her heady gaze makes him dizzy and flushed. He tunes Iruka’s words out entirely as he watches the vixen holding his eye; while his best friend works her up into a frenzy on the sun lounger.

Their heated moment of near voyeuristic eye contact couldn’t have lasted longer than seconds, but to Genma it may as well have been millennia until he tears his attention away from the couple and tries to rejoin the conversation Iruka was engaging him in; the end result is all the same to him.

His efforts toward dialogue now are useless at best. He can’t think, can’t concentrate, much less listen and answer. All he can focus on is suppressing the raging erection that’s threatening to rise against the flimsy fabric of his soaking wet swim trunks.

In perfect sync to Genma ending their moment Kakashi’s teeth graze over her skin with his grin, and Sakura shudders violently when she turns her head to face him.

“Meet me in our room in 10?” She pants shallowly and Kakashi kisses the corner of her mouth sweetly.

“Sure thing.”

But when he straightens up to go ahead, he doesn’t turn to the hotel. Instead he walks the few yards straight up to their group of friends, now hanging around where Ino is sleeping in a laughably giant straw hat under an umbrella, practically bodyguarded by her taciturn boyfriend, and Kakashi’s accountant, Sai.

“Watch our stuff for a while, Sakura needs to cool down. She’s a bit... _hot and bothered,_ ” he explains, but the corners of his mouth twitch upward into a lopsided dirty grin as he chooses his words carefully. As if to confirm his statement, he throws her a quick glance over his shoulder. Everyone follows his gaze unprompted.

Long toned legs are flung gracefully over the side of the sun lounger and her red painted toes sink into the sand smoothly. As she straightens out her belongings nothing seems too out of the ordinary – she seems well enough. Bright flush aside, it may just be a sunburn, it all seems _innocent_ enough.

But the illusion breaks like fine china when she pushes herself up and her knees buckle considerably. Traitorous as her joints, her bikini top does an abysmal job of smoothing out her hardened nipples. Proud and dignified however, Sakura plays it cool. Tossing her rosy hair carelessly over her shoulder, she only graces the group with a sugary smile, before she turns on her heel and leaves.

Yamato arches a brow but doesn’t comment the situation, whereas Iruka grins and nudges his friend’s shoulder, “Nice.”

Kakashi personally isn’t surprised that Genma keeps quiet for once. He only watches his friend’s eye linger on Sakura’s disappearing form, but Kakashi figures that just for appearance’s sake... he should call him out.

To everyone else, this isn’t quite normal behavior for the brunette after all. At least not in this type of situation. Right as Kakashi’s about to say something snide, Sai cuts in with his forehead creased quizzically.

“If Sakura is overheated, why doesn’t she just go for a swim?”

Glances are exchanged and a quiet chuckle makes a round through the remaining group of three.

It’s an opportunity as golden as they come and Genma finally seems to remember who the fuck he is in this constellation. The click of his tongue draws the attention of the group. With all eyes on him, he takes his sweet time and lazily places a fresh toothpick between his teeth before he speaks, “You know, I think Sakura is wet enough.”

Yamato almost chokes on the beer raised to his lips, inspiring a fake concerned scowl from Kakashi. Even if he expected something of the sort from him, Iruka still raises his eyes awkwardly to the tree line of palms past Kakashi’s head in resignation.

_Classic Genma._ _Nice save._

Sai however seems even more puzzled than before, but politely stays silent when Kakashi shifts his weight.

Ever calm, ever smooth, the front man of the group is diplomatic as usual and throws Genma a wink, like he would Pakkun a bone.

“You got her.”

Without a further word, he turns around and jogs after his wife.

God, Genma _wishes_ he did.

* * *

“They’re married almost six years and still act like horny teenagers. Isn’t the honeymoon phase supposed to be over at some point?” Iruka shakes his head in amused disbelief once Kakashi has left their line of sight, yet he can’t help but laugh.

Still kind of numb and star struck by the entire past fifteen or so minutes Genma stays quiet, merely shuffling his weight in the sand and the toothpick in his mouth, trying to not appear as dejected as he feels.

Yamato shrugs to Iruka’s question, knowing fully well that it’s rhetorical, but his eye is actually drawn to Genma in his restless shifting. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say his friend is pulling a classic - what they like to call – _Sasuke_ and sulks like a little bitch.

The bassist just can’t figure out about _what_.

He shoots him a pointed look over his beer, but Genma seems to ignore him equally as pointed. Yamato shrugs, really not caring enough to make a big deal about it. _Maybe he’s just in a mood_.

When he lets his deep eyes drift from Genma’s broody expression he comes to look back at the path Kakashi disappeared on.

“I guess they just switch it up a lot and that keeps their relationship fresh or something,” he says eventually, deciding to open _this_ can of worms instead.

Iruka snorts and drops heavily into the sand besides Yamato’s lounger, “Yeah, no shit. It’s not exactly a secret that Hatake is kinky as hell.”

At that, Ino laughs from her sun lounger. Still hidden by her giant straw hat, they didn’t realize she had woken up from their chatter. “Man, you guys really have _no_ idea of who Sakura is then.”

Said guys are all struck into silence as they stare dumbfounded at Ino; or rather at her ridiculous hat.

Bile rises in his throat like the tide and frankly, Genma would choose to rather not think about what her words imply. Instead he opens up a bottle of beer from the small cooler between them and tries to wash away the acrid taste.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Yamato scowls as Ino shoves up her hat, unnecessarily slowly for dramatic effect, to eye the group.

“By that, I _mean_ that Sakura is the one who's _really_ dirty in that relationship,” she elaborates matter of factly, like she’s explaining something very simple to someone very stupid. They still just gape at her like fish and Ino snorts.

“You think Kakashi is kinky because he reads his lonely housewife erotica in public? Those are children’s books in comparison to what Sakura is willing to do in private.” After a beat she clicks her tongue and adds, “or in public. Depends on the weather.”

Now Genma really feels sick to his stomach. He doesn’t want to hear this, he doesn’t want to _picture_ this, and his eyes flutter shut for a brief moment. A feeble, childish attempt at trying to shut out the immediate flood of thoughts rushing at him.

To his luck he doesn’t seem to be the only one kind of blindsided by Ino’s outrageous proclamation. Both his remaining band members sport varying expressions of displeasure, that range from somewhere between a dog biting a lemon and a child realising for the first time that their parents have sex.

So, he’s in good company.

But the flipping of his stomach doesn’t subside since the matter at hand remains the same. Desperate to ease his rising nausea, he leans back on his lounger on one elbow, not really caring to engage the conversation again. Iruka doesn’t seem to either, and he takes comfort in that.

Ino though, is merciless. Like the fucking mind reader, she is, she sees straight through him. Right through every layer of thick muscle to his distressed heart. She has for a long time.

Piercing him with her sky blue eyes, she cocks her head like a curious bird. The sun is beating down on them, but his blood runs cold as ice.

“You alright there, Genma? I’m surprised to see you so quiet. No cheesy, tasteless line to fire from your repertoire? Shouldn’t this topic be like, right up your alley?” Her voice drips with over the top mock concern.

All eyes are on him now and he can feel his skin prickle. _Be cool, idiot._

Just like earlier, he stalls on purpose. Taking a sip from his beer, he chuckles mirthlessly into the mouth of the bottle.

“‘Guess I just don’t take as much of an interest in how my best friend fucks his wife, other than _some_ people here,” he retorts with the fakest million dollar smile he’s ever given. Genma hopes she can see the bite and warning, behind the brittle veneer of well-aimed teasing.

While it couldn’t be further away from the truth, the quip has the desired effect: Ino’s expression turns sour and she’s got a narrow glint in her eye. Even if he looks calm, Genma’s heart beats brutally against his chest; but Ino gets the hint. She was an overstepping bitch and now she must take the high road.

Yet one last thing burns on the tip of her tongue; she doesn’t need to voice her poisonous remark aloud though, it translates between them unspoken.

_You’re just bitter Kakashi got to her first._

The moment ends smoothly when she petulantly slides her hat back into her face.

_Conversation over._

Iruka and Yamato on the other hand, feel like they were left on the sidelines. _Again_. Always on the worst seats of the peanut gallery to a really shitty show.

Left in the dark they exchange awkward glances and scowls during the whole terse minute of silence.

That’s been happening a lot over the past couple of months. Uncomfortable silences and wide eyed ‘ _what the **fuck** ’ _stares.

When none of them can manage to bring up a new topic that really catches anyone’s attention, Genma decides to make a run for it.

“Hey, I think I’m gonna head inside and _actually_ lie down for a bit,” he declares nonchalantly and runs a hand through his knotted hair as he pushes off the sun lounger.

“You alright?” Iruka inquires in his usual fatherly – excuse me, _caring_ – manner, but Genma waves him off.

With a vague gesture to the hotel he continues, “Yeah, it’s alright. I think I’m just a little sun struck. Y’know, nausea and all that.”

Understandingly Yamato nods and like a good, considerate, friend, he snatches the barely started beer from his hands.

“Drink water,” he scolds and Genma nods without objection.

Just like Kakashi earlier, he doesn’t add anything further before he turns toward the hotel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so........... what do you think
> 
> tell me everything


	3. i burn, i pine, i perish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who figured self quarantine was gonna be this good for pumping out chapters lmao
> 
> anyway, i applied a new strategy/method to my writing and it made the process definitely easier for me, making me more motivated to write the chapter and continue and, uh
> 
> now i have a 6k chapter of smut for you guys. LOL
> 
> i'm already excited to write the next couple chapters but i'll warn you: they're just filled with sitcom worthy bullshit that made me laugh just thinking up. band stuff ya feel. there will still be plot in there but i hope you guys will laugh along with me and if not please just keep it to yourself. i get it. i've been told multiple times on multiple occasions throughout multiple years that i'm not funny. (jk please still leave me critical reviews if you've got them!)
> 
> for today though: on with the sexy stuff.

**_The year prior, the twilight days between Christmas and New Years._ **

“Sakura, did you ever think of bringing on someone else?”

She scowls at her book, eyes rushing across the words as she finishes up the paragraph tying together loose ends, before she engages with Kakashi's question absently, “To the band?”

“No, to us.”

At once, she's stopped dead in her tracks.

If it were anyone but him asking, and if she was married to anyone but him in this particular situation, then this question would ignite a bonfire of monumental rage in her that could burn down entire landslides. A question put so bluntly has the potential to spark fury worthy of a bard's song.

But Sakura is not angry; there is no offence corroding her insides, no hurt cutting her deep. She is brimming with _elation_.

The fact that this isn’t about anyone but _him -_ and that they both know it - has her heart leaping in her chest. Like she's swallowed a thousand birds, her stomach flutters.

Sly as a fox, Sakura will not show this straight away however and merely cracks an impish smile.

“I have.” She flips through her book mindlessly for a few minutes, before closing it for good and facing her husband. Kakashi's eyes shine with mischief and Sakura's breath almost catches in her throat. “Why do you ask?”

* * *

**_Now_.**

Around a few days past New Years of last year, Kakashi and Sakura had proposed an idea to their gaggle of bandits, of taking a vacation together. Right before the tour, somewhere warm and careless. A last stop to destress and spend time together before they spend a year on the road, potentially strangling each other along the way.

Expectedly Ino had _jumped_ at the idea, and almost taken over the planning from there, hadn't Sakura already made a spreadsheet and a detailed plan for the arrangements in wise foresight. She wanted things to be old school and tight knit, just like they were then, so many years ago, before things really took off. Back to the roots and all that. Back home.

So they prepared, packed, counted down the days. One by one. And, before they knew it, it was June.

At the ungodly hour of five am, they had gathered at Iruka's place with the van and Ino's car packed and ready to go. Genma had complained. A lot. But like a disgruntled child he was out cold as soon as they hit the road and the drive went smoothly. As it turns out, Sakura had struck a deal and found a quaint little hotel at a reclusive part of the beach that offered apartment bungalows aside from their regular rooms.

While a strange experience for Kakashi, they had actually arrived first at their destination and the Hatakes and Genma immediately claimed the side of the small bungalow that housed the two bigger bedrooms. Ino later proceeded to curse the living daylights out of Sakura for thereby forcing her to share a bathroom with three guys, when Ino carried at least twice the amount of beauty products Sakura did. But Sakura has no sympathy for unpunctuality. Or her best friend for that matter.

"First come first serve," is all she had said. The only sound to reach the group of men after that, while they were unpacking in the living room and open kitchen, was a hearty slap.

Right now, the summer sun is blazing down unforgiving and dry onto the terracotta path leading to the small bungalow they’re currently calling home, and Sakura's chest heaves as she fans herself. Yet it is not the climate making her face flush red. Kakashi catches up with her just as she reaches the cornflower blue door with its chipped paint and the scattered potted succulents around the entrance.

“Gotcha,” His voice is warm and low, and he is hard, pressing her against the door as she struggles to get out the key. Her hands stutter and shake, fumbling along the teeth of it and she almost drops it when Kakashi brings up his arms next to her head and cages her against the door.

“What’s up, Sakura, can’t think straight anymore? Is he making you that much of a mess?” He hums low, but the words catch on the edges of his grin. His erection presses harder against the curve of her ass as he growls lowly in her ear, “am _I_ making you that much of a mess?”

Sakura is still rendered speechless and Kakashi is not surprised. If there is one thing in the world he knows, it is his wife. And just about everything that gets her off.

Cautiously he lifts his head from beside her ear and scans the area around them, to check if anyone can see them from the other rentable apartments there. In the heat of noon the little village is dormant though, asleep and drowsy. No prying eyes around.

With their privacy confirmed, well, as private as it gets out in the open, he lifts one hand off the wood of the door and flattens it against her stomach. Downward from her navel he slides his fingertips over her heated, sun kissed skin, straight into the dampness of her bikini panties. They stick to her. Sakura gasps and drops the key in earnest then, head falling back hard against his shoulder as her bones and muscles essentially turn to jelly. Considerate as always, he holds her up around the ribcage, but his mouth right next to her ear is anything but considerate.

His hot low breath puffs over the shell of her ear and the pads of his fingers circle her clit as he coats them in her abundant slickness, and smirks, “Oh, we’re making you _such_ a mess.”

“Kakashi, let's get inside," Sakura pants, finally finding her voice over the anxiety of coming right against the front door, in possible line of sight of their temporary neighbours at that.

“Gladly,” Kakashi agrees but instead of retracting his fingers he sinks two into her heat, groaning against her neck as it is laughably easy.

“God, you’re so wet, just listen to that sound,” he moans into the fuzz at her neck and pumps his hand while Sakura digs her nails into his forearm. Even if she listened, she doesn't think she could hear the sound of her own arousal over the moan in her throat and the cicadas producing their deafening cacophony around them.

“You’re killing me,” she sobs, before a shaky laugh ripples through her ribs, “you’re such an exhibitionist.”

“And you love it,” he sighs, continuing to stroke the spot inside her that makes her shiver.

Sakura nods and breathes a sigh, “Yes, I do. With my whole heart.”

* * *

Even if it was just a lie to get away from the scrutinising eyes and snide mouths of his friends, fucking _Ino's_ especially, Genma now really does feel the need to lie down.

It's barely been a couple days since their arrival here, and they still have close to two weeks left, yet he is already emotionally exhausted. Drained by ardency and agony.

After that calamitous evening he shared with Sakura in the bathtub things had been both better than ever and infinitely worse at the same time for him.

Before that night, they had been friends, sure. After all, she's been married to his band's frontman for years now and been a part of the group for even longer than that. Of course, they were friends in that manner. Through the band alone they had spent countless of hours together at all times of the day and night; in all sorts of different situations, too. Not to even mention how much they'd been around each other privately, simply because Genma had always been so close with Kakashi. They were friends alright.

But up until then, she was always _'his best friend's wife'_ , or _'Kakashi's girlfriend'_ to him. Genma only met her when she started dating the singer in earnest; he had only ever known her as unavailable.

Not that Sakura was ever _just anyone's partner_. Absolutely _not_. Every space she occupies, she does so as herself. As her own person. Bright, vivacious, smart, gorgeous and with a tongue so sharp she should need a license for it. All-consuming like flame. Only then comes the title of wife and friend to her, and neither Kakashi nor Genma would have it any other way.

But in the end, the point is though, that there was always a certain distance between them.

The fact that he had fallen for her from the start, even knowing that they were never going to be a thing, that it was never an option, has tripped him up a lot over the years. Countless attempts to move on, to just forget about her, were made. And failed. Inevitably like the tide, the next day would come. And he'd meet her in the studio again. Glowing and vibrant; she'd smite him on sight.

All his healthy, necessary resolutions of getting over her were always wiped away with a flash of her bright green eyes. He was, and still is, completely at her mercy.

Along the way of coming to terms with his fate, Genma has broken hearts. Too many, too easily and too brutally. It didn't take long at all until he'd become the silly movie trope, the 'emotionally unavailable bachelor', the womaniser unable to commit. _If only they knew._

It was a thorn in his side at first. A stabbing quip that left him inwardly wheezing. But like a tree being obstructed in its growth by an obstacle, he grew to adapt and moulded around it. He learned to smile the jokes at his expense away and began to crack ones of his own. He started to stop feeling guilty about the casual sex and appreciated its brief pleasure in his bleak circumstances. The more hidden the pain became, the deeper he hid away his feelings too.

Often though, in the quiet moments of the night, guilt would grip him suddenly. It would rattle him from a dead sleep, like a predator jumping its prey. Sometimes it would sit on his chest and crack his ribcage, other times it wrapped around his throat and asphyxiated him. He was never religious, but Genma understands why envy is a deadly sin. The sense of profound shame and guilt he feels over desiring his best friend's wife would make the catholic church shed a tear.

The single thing he can pride himself on though, is that he never could deny Kakashi his joy – his happiness. Is he jealous that Kakashi is married to Sakura and gets to live his life as hers? Yes, with his whole heart. But he could never begrudge the man for it. Kakashi had an absolutely brutal life up until when he met him, and Genma couldn't think of a better reward to all the suffering than Sakura's love.

Above all though, and this is both the most painful and the sweetest part, Kakashi makes Sakura _happy_. They are genuinely and unabashedly the love of each other's lives and it shows. It's tangible in its truth. Kakashi is a good husband, a great one actually, and he earns himself her love every day anew. That, Genma can respect.

Because, after all, he loves her, too. How could he deny her happiness?

Therefore, he was content with the way their relationship had been. Genma savoured the few snippets of conversation they had here and there, but never tried to dig into deeper topics with her. Their relationship was built on snark and teasing, on banter and shallow humour and nothing more. While he always had an inkling, that he craved conversation and interest, a true _connection_ with her, he was entirely unaware of how genuinely torturous that would be.

Genma has loved her for close to seven years. Madly, most ardently – but, from a respectable distance.

All up until she drowned that space in red wine and her bath water.

Then suddenly Genma wasn't just her husband's best friend anymore; then Genma became S _akura's_ friend. Separately from anyone else. And now they have their own relationship.

Now she sits down beside _him_ even when there are multiple other options available. Now they talk about their own topics, no more buffering from Kakashi or someone else required, or forced upon them.

It had never been like that and today Genma really feels like it had been for good reason. Now he doesn't have to sneak glances at her from across the room anymore, when she laughs brightly. (Or at least not as often.) Because now she laughs right in front of him; sometimes even over something _he_ said. When she sat down that morning to eat breakfast with him, his heart beat so fast, it hurt thumping against his ribs.

Genma always thought he loved her – up until now. Because now, he's realising that all the quiet pain and ache he felt before, is downright _pathetic_ in comparison to the agony of falling in love with her all over again.

If he thought he couldn't move on before, he is now certain that he'll go to his grave loving her.

* * *

At her insistence they’ve made it inside, but not very far since that. Following the line of reasoning that they basically told the other idiots that they were retreating to fuck, they’re not expecting anyone to walk in on them. Not to mention that Sakura might lose her mind if Kakashi didn't pick up right where he left off in the next thirty seconds.

They kiss and kiss and kiss and it is not enough. It's a sloppy and heated exchange of tongue and teeth as they fall back into the ratty but comfortable couch. She almost laughs; relief is on the horizon.

Kakashi has no sense for patience on this day and undoes the little bows on each side of her hip with callous movements, tearing away the bikini unceremoniously. As the air hits her heated wet core, Sakura sighs and her head lolls back into the cushions the same way it did on the sun lounger. But Kakashi is not gentle anymore. The time for coaxing touches is over and Sakura can't say that she objects as her husband arranges her just so, with rough hands and eager bites against her shoulder for him to get the right angle. His hand rips the fabric off of her as he kneels over her, and their eyes lock when he runs his thumb over her clit before reentering two of his fingers into her soaking wet heat.

She moans at first, but the sound morphs soon into a whine when he just won't keep a steady pace. Any time her climax begins to climb even to base camp, he switches his rhythm and Sakura finds herself growling in frustration, “For fuck's sake, Kakashi, what are you doing?”

“So, he gets you this worked up just coming out of the water, huh?” He rumbles back and their eyes are like flint hitting steel when they meet. Sparks fly and Sakura laughs. But it’s a broken, breathless sound, peppered with moans when he flicks her clit with his thumb, picking up a rhythm that actually carries her skyward.

Sakura arches and jerks in his grip, fully leaning into his touch as if she is afraid, he'd stop again. Kakashi is gracious now though and while he avoids her precise favourites, she can feel the tension coil in her loins. Like the climb of a rollercoaster up to the peak. Just when she thinks she can see the sky and her lashes flutter in anticipation, he lets up and she groans. Rage is breathing new life into her and her mind works at lightning speed. Composing herself she gathers just enough breath to scoff and snicker, with a devilish glint in her eyes.

“Why, you jealous?” She flutes in a honey sweet tone and Kakashi snaps his wrist.

His fingers curl and he strokes her clit hard and slow, holding down her hip with his free hand while additionally pinning her down through a measured, narrow gaze. “What was that?”

A deep, practically feral growl breaks free from her chest and she rolls her hips into his touch, but his expression stays hard. Instead of intimidating her, the strict glare he's giving her is only fanning the flames in her lower belly. Sakura's physical response doesn't leave him unfazed either though. While his face stays stern, his erection strains achingly against his swim shorts yet his damp hair softens his entire demeanour by falling into his eyes. Unable to break their eye contact, the corner of his mouth lifts eventually and Sakura bares her teeth at him in a defiant, wild grin. Her bright sage greens are alight with mischief and primal joy in their game.

  
  


“I said," she bites, " _are - you - jealous?_ ” Her plump, swollen lips round the words out carefully between pants, and she punctuates her sentence with a high pitched moan when he strokes that special spot deep inside her.

“You wish,” he growls in return and retracts his hand. Sakura mewls and writhes, begging him in broken half sentences to continue but he just teases with featherlight touches. At this point she feels starved and desperate. In a frenzied attempt to coax him back to touching her like before, she catches his face in her hands and pants against his mouth.

Stroking his cheekbone with her thumb, she murmurs, “Don’t be, don't be, don't be. I love you both.”

As if her tenderness was the magic key, he relents and adds his fingers back, picking up on his previous pace without any change of rhythm. Her husband captures her lips in a searing kiss and she reciprocates heatedly, _lovingly_. Open mouthed and wet and tender. Assured and soothed, Kakashi breaks away first and bends down trailing a path of fluttery kisses down to her core. Her hands sink into his hair immediately and she practically wrings water droplets from it when he circles her clit with the tip of his tongue.

“As I said,” she pants then, struck by a thought, and her tone is light carried by a grin, “apples and oranges.”

She can feel his own smirk against her lips and his genuine chuckle reverberates against her clit as he presses his tongue flat against it. Just as she thinks she’s going to lose her mind and becomes tingly from head to toe, he asks against her core, “Explain that closer to me - am I the apple or the orange?”

She wants to scream in frustration again but laughs instead with her eyes closed. Loud and in love.

Her back arches and her lip quivers as she’s trembling and growing closer to her first orgasm. “Well, you’re hot like all my fantasies are,” she explains, “you can be so dark and - _oh, fuck_ \- _dominant_ , like the broody heart throb in–” Her breath hitches when he swirls his tongue around his pumping fingers and her clit, and her nails dig into the couch cushions before she repeats, ”like the broody heart throb in romantic movies.”

To Kakashi, avid lover of what Ino called ‘lonely housewife erotica’ which is just code for ‘cheesy porn’, that sounds good enough and he rewards her sweet compliments by sucking on her clit. The gratification is instant, and he earns himself a shuddered _loud_ moan, before Sakura swallows and returns to the topic.

“But, _Genma,_ ” she sighs his name and Kakashi can’t help but groan - not in jealousy, however. As surprising as it is to him, somehow this turns him on. Incredibly so. Technically the explanation is simple, he was drawn to her vigour from the start and he takes joy in her joy. It's easy as that: Sakura’s _passion_ just really turns him on. Even passion for his best friend. Actually, _especially_ for his best friend. 

“Genma was like a Greek _god_. I mean, did you–" Her breath hitches and she stutters, "s- _see_ him?” Her voice grows higher with every word and Kakashi ups the ante; he bites back a curse himself when he feels her ripple around his fingers, heralding her incoming orgasm. Desperate for friction himself at this point, his hips grind down into the couch cushions. His wet swim shorts are soaking the fabric, but he's not worried about that. Water dries; he’s just hoping there won't be any cum stains once they're done here.

“Kakashi, I–“ Sakura starts as his tongue circles and his lips close around her clit, but she’s already crying out. Moaning against her, he greedily laps up all he can get of her orgasm until she forcefully shoves his face away; now overly sensitive she pulls him in for a kiss.

  
  


“I love you,” she stutters with closed eyes, holding him tight with her hands still in his hair. If he listened closely, he could her a bit of a sniffle in the back of her throat while she tries to catch her breath. Kakashi loves that about her too; her emotions and that gentle sensitivity she keeps so close to her heart.

“I love you, too,” he sighs against the corner of her mouth, waiting for her to catch her breath with his forehead leaned against hers as he discreetly wipes his chin with the back of his arm.

Once her breathing evens and she comes down a little from her stratospheric high, her eyes snap open and she leans forward. He groans when his wife palms his erection, hypersensitive to her touch, while she establishes eye contact.

“Now fuck me.”

* * *

About halfway to their temporary abode, Genma is reminded of a very crucial detail that slows his gait considerably.

In his haste to get away from the sharp quips of his friends, he didn’t stop to think about the fact, that the basis to the sharp quips is currently being fucked out of her mind by her husband in the same house he plans to take a nap in. The realization stops him dead in his tracks for a good minute as he groans and almost bites his toothpick in two.

Then he deliberates. They’ll be in their room, or at the very least the bathroom maybe, so he can hope that most of the sound will already be blocked out by the door and the walls. _Good, that’s something._ He tries to cheer himself up, but his brow twitches. _Oh, who are you kidding?_

Running his hands through his hair, pulling a little on the roots for emphasis, he tries to see the situation rationally. They’re on vacation _with friends_. Surely this isn’t going to be an hours long session, right? A quickie should be enough, shouldn’t it?

But he catches his logic failing as his own voice intrudes his thoughts: _You wouldn’t just leave it at a quickie either if you were in his position._ The images flood his mind at once, starting and ending with what set this into motion. Eye contact with her. Burning, searing, _dirty eye fucking._ Back there at the beach.

Frankly, Genma still isn’t sure if it wasn’t an illusion. A trick of his starved mind. The moment was so short after all. _Yet it was so long._ Was she really seeing him? Was she really looking at _him?_ No, yeah, she was _definitely_ looking at him though; straight pinned him down with that hot emerald gaze.

A voice whispers from the deep dark depths in his mind, like a titan from the old world: _Why did she do that though?_

But he shoves the thought aside. He shoves _all_ thought aside.

Threatening to get lost in the imagery of her on that sun lounger and all the consecutive daydreams of what could have happened, of what might have been, the drummer shakes his head and focuses on his walk. The sooner he arrives at the house, the sooner he can get on his headphones and zone out. In private; hidden safely away from heartbreak and ridicule.

As he approaches the cheerily withered door, he notices one of the succulents turned over and the substrate of pebbles spilled. It doesn’t occur to him what happened to it as he dutifully straightens the pot and scoops the filler material back under the thick fleshy leaves. Realization hits him however like a freight train, when he opens the door.

Faint moans from inside the house reach his ears and Genma wants to die on the spot.

With his hand on the doorknob he rigidly shoves the door closed, praying that they at least closed their bedroom door. Though from the sounds of it, they did _not_ , and he rests his forehead against the wood in a need to compose himself and closes his eyes tightly.

_Just make haste, Shiranui, the faster you get to your room, the faster you can tune it out._

With a deep breath he steels himself and rounds the corner of the small, dim hall to the living area, but he doesn’t get farther than that. The sight before him strikes him like a thunderbolt.

Worse than that though? The sound he hears next will be seared into his brain forever.

Sakura is bent over the arm of the couch facing the hall, as Kakashi is curled over her back, obviously jackhammering into her. Both pairs of hazy eyes shoot up to him in surprise, but Genma hardly sees Kakashi half hidden under his argent wet hair as he peeks over her shoulder.

He only has eyes for Sakura and the way her malachite eyes widen when they meet his. Just like before, their eye contact is instant and sweltering. It catapults her brutally over the edge and her kiss swollen, plump lips part wide as her orgasm rips her apart. She moans his name both in surprise as in release, and Genma only wants to perish.

* * *

The same way as before Kakashi manoeuvres and arranges her the way she likes; he handles her like she is but a doll. Sakura feels so hard and tough and enduring so many hours of the day, she relishes her husband’s defiant touch, challenged rather than intimidated by her brash attitude. It is also an act of demonstrating possessiveness and Sakura finds her heart blooming with fondness at the thought.

No matter what or who sparked this, or what they’re working on here, Sakura is _his_. In the beginning of the day and at the end of the night. She belongs with _him_ before all else, as he belongs to _her_. Kakashi doesn’t doubt one bit that she may belong with Genma too, but he _knows_ for a fact that she belongs with him. In this life as in every other life.

Kakashi moans and jerks into her touch as she languidly strokes him, his mouth meanwhile crashing against hers hard. Sakura can taste herself and her full flavour profile on his tongue and it stirs the hardly dormant arousal in her core anew. When she moves to wrap her legs around his waist, Kakashi breaks the kiss however and shakes his head.

“No, no,” his hands find her waist as he begins to twist her, and Sakura obediently follows his suggested movement. “On your knees, Sakura.”

She obeys eagerly, suppressing an all too desperate sigh and really arches her back. In a presenting manner, she supports herself with her hands on the armrest of the couch as she faces the door and pushes her behind wantonly against him.

A pleased grin tugs at the corners of his mouth and Kakashi’s hand comes down to hold her hip in place as he grinds hard against her. In sharp contrast to the primal movement of his hips, he brushes her hair from her back surprisingly tenderly, ghosting kisses along her spine.

His mouth trails back up and down and up again to the shell of her ear while his swim trunks rustle with the weird, damp, layered material being shoved down. Sakura gasps in delight when he presses the head of his cock between her folds, sliding them along her wetness and purposely bumping her clit. Still sensitive from her first orgasm, she moans and whines as she lowers down onto her elbows and grinds back against him.

“What was going through your head when you watched him back there?” His low, gravelly voice sends a shiver down her spine and goosebumps spread all over her from her chest out; it’s so intense, her teeth almost clatter. “What did you think of while you were eye fucking him like that?” He presses the thick tip she’s aching for against her entrance but retracts immediately, purposely wanting to make her beg a little. Sakura delivers and the hand holding her hip strokes her side and her back soothingly, like he has no intention of pounding into her.

“Kakashi,” Sakura whines now, breathlessly, and presses back against him more desperately, chasing the feeling of pressure and fullness, “don’t be like this now.” Her husband only hums a long sigh of pleasure as he keeps sliding along her slit, not really guiding, just enjoying the feeling of her slickness coating him.

“I asked you a question,” he simply responds eventually, but then the grip on her hip tightens and Sakura pants as he positions himself. “Answer me, please.”

Though his words may betray him, his tone isn’t demanding; his grin breaks his serious demeanour easily. She almost relaxes and tries to string her words together, but her efforts are scattered into the wind when he pushes into her. His moan soaks into the skin of her back and it is rich and full bodied. There was genuinely no resistance, she is _gushingly_ wet, and her inner walls grip him so tightly, Kakashi can see stars. His wife gasps in relief and her angelic head of coral pink hair drops forward like lead to bury her face at the arm rest.

The connoisseur he is, Kakashi sets a slow, deep, grinding pace. A side effect of that is that despite her vision being blinding white, Sakura manages to somewhat catch her breath and meets him thrust for thrust.

“I was thinking,” she eventually chokes out in answer to his question, between low level moans and whimpers as her hands fists into the fabric of the couch, “I was imagining what it would be like if there were no people around but us.”

“Just you and him on that beach?” Kakashi presses in a soft tone, no jealousy tainting his voice at her ear, just pure curiosity. His hips begin to move faster, shallower and Sakura moans when she nods.

“Yes. Yes, just him and me,” she stutters. When she doesn’t go on, Kakashi snaps his hips hard and weaves a hand into her hair, pulling her up very lightly, thusly enforcing the curve in her back.

“Then what?” He asks, breath laboured against her mussed hair.

Sakura grins wide and tries to peek at him over her shoulder, “I imagined what it would be like if I just touched myself then, right in front of him.”

Kakashi grins too and curls tighter around her back, nipping at her lips but not fully granting her a kiss as he snaps his hips harder and faster, “Did you want him to join? Touch you too?” A breathless pause, “Eat you out?”

Sakura’s eyes roll into the back of her head for a moment and she moans, but eventually she shakes her head and their lips brush, “No.”

Her lashes flutter and Kakashi is hypnotized when she opens her eyes again, before she kisses him and drags his lower lip with her teeth. Her pupils are blown wide but there’s a glint in her hazy greens that makes his stomach lurch in all the right ways.

“I wanted him to watch.”

Kakashi hardly suppresses a heartfelt moan and instead chuckles throatily. He tightens his grip ever so slightly on her hair, now pounding her hard and listening to her cries grow high to the heavens. “You dirty minx.”

The edge of pride in his voice is almost better than the orgasm she is rushing toward and Sakura moans with free abandon. A little shakily she shifts her weight onto one elbow and sneaks a hand down herself to circle her clit, pushing her closer and closer to release. Kakashi’s hands are still on her hip and in her hair, and he can practically taste their climax on her salty skin when the they hear the door fall shut.

They both still almost immediately and exchange a terse glance over her shoulder. A communal thought is exchanged between the both of them in silence.

_Could that be him?_

Both watch the door with bated breath but Kakashi’s mind moves faster than hers. Without hesitation he picks his pace up again immediately and even faster. Sakura lets out a startled gasp at first but catches on half a heartbeat later. As the steps come closer, Kakashi tightens his grip in her hair considerably and pulls her up further, practically presenting her to whoever is about to walk through the open door – knowing that if it is him, she’ll have prime eye contact.

She is close, but not quite there and her fingers move at lightning speed. It turns out to be an unnecessary effort however, for when he steps through the doorway and their eyes meet at once, Sakura is practically sucker punched by her orgasm. She shoots over the edge like she’s an arrow on a crossbow and gasps out his name, rather in climax than in surprise: “ _Genma–_ ”

Then everything happens so fast. Kakashi’s forehead sinks down between her shoulder blades and he groans deep in his throat, releasing himself hot and sputtering into her as Genma breaks from his initial stupor and flees into the hall.

His swears reach her ear muffled and she feels like she is underwater for the first thirty seconds or so as Kakashi unwinds his hand from her hair. She lets her face sink down exhaustedly onto the armrest while growing slack as jelly under her husband.

“ _For fuck’s sake!_ ” Her secret love hollers, an edge of agony to his voice he can’t even pick out himself. “Go to your room, you assholes! This is a fucking shared space!”

The brunette swears like a sailor and groans before he imitates retching noises. To be fair, he does really feel like vomiting and this might just be the thing to set him off. Instead of emptying his guts on the laminate of the hall, he chooses to breathe fire and slaps his palm against the wall.

“You guys are seriously such jackasses. Any of us could’ve fucking walked in!” He complains and listens for the sound of movement as the two offenders sort themselves out in the living room.

Sakura’s legs feel utterly non-functional and she collapses awkwardly onto her heels as Kakashi removes himself from in and around her. Even in afterglow however she is compassionate and boxes her husband’s shoulder on Genma’s behalf.

“Ow, what did _I_ do?” Kakashi complains and pulls up his shorts. _Sweet convenience of not getting fully undressed._

“You had to get started before we even got inside the house!” Sakura yells back and fishes for her panty. Her hands still shake as she ties the bows on either side of her hip.

In the hall Genma groans at the divulgence of detail he’d rather not learned, and Sakura resumes to glaring daggers at her husband before she hisses under her breath, “and you knew it was going to be him! That was so _mean_ , you’re such an ass!”

Kakashi only grins though and brushes his unruly locks out of his face. With a casual nonchalance that boils her blood he leans down and kisses her forehead, “Right on, but you came so hard, I thought _I_ would see stars. Wasn’t that worth it?”

An angry retort burns a practical hole into her tongue, but Genma’s irked call cuts her off. He didn’t hear the whispered argument nor listened for it in the first place. The blood in his ears is rushing loudly enough to drown out all nuance and noise.

“Are you guys finally decent? I’ve got a splitting headache and I just want to fucking lie down, alright?”

“Yeah, we’re dressed,” Kakashi answers and Genma steps out from the hall with tentative long strides. His shoulders are so taught, Sakura can see every muscle in them, down to his broad wrists and she shifts in her seat. The apologetic, kind of shameful look on her face is not just due to subjecting him to that, but she can’t believe that even his anger is getting her going _again_.

“Sorry, seriously,” she smiles meekly, almost demurely, but his chocolate eyes only narrow. Every fibre in his being screams forgiveness as he sees her big glassy round eyes, but the way she flushes and bites her lower lip just pains him and blocks out all grace.

“Don’t care. That was vile,” he sneers and eyes the couch with a deep, disgusted scowl. _If only to not look at her._ “You think the hotel will charge us if we burn that thing?”

Kakashi snorts and claps him on the shoulder but Genma immediately flinches from his hand, “Don’t be such a diva now, I’ve walked in on you _so_ many more times before.”

_Not the same thing. Not even remotely the same at all_ , the drummer thinks bitterly and chews on his toothpick as he steps away from the couch.

“Don’t try to flip this around on me now,” Genma warns before he gives a long sigh and runs a hand through his half-dried tresses. “Whatever, I’m gonna lie down now. Keep it to your bedroom from now on.”

As he walks across the room toward his own, he shakes his head but halts halfway to his destination. The grin that graces his face sends a shiver down Sakura’s spine and even Kakashi stiffens up in his spot.

“You can bet your asses, that I’m going to rat you out to Ino.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave me your thoughts! <3


	4. darling, this is lycanthropy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello my sweet readers <3
> 
> i gotta warn some of you, this chapter is LONG again AND i incorporated a song into the chapter this time. i'm usually not a fan of that but i hope i managed to do it tastefully and it's just so fitting, i had to and i have 0 regrets.
> 
> the song is the iconic "She Wolf" by Shakira if you want to listen to it along with the chapter, i recommend it
> 
> a further side note;
> 
> to anyone that has seen bohemian rhapsody (the 2018 one with rami malek): let’s just say I’ve had a giant crush on roger taylor since I was a wee teenage loser, and the way he was acted by Ben Hardy (and looked... oof) in this movie did things to roil THAT beast from the depth. as you can guess, his portrayal is a big inspiration for my genma lol
> 
> actually overall the band dynamic between Brian, Roger and John is a huge inspiration here for me. _especially_ that one scene before they’re recording bohemian rhapsody in that farm house and they’re having a fight over roger’s song in the kitchen LOL  
> If you haven’t watched it, go do it, it’s hilarious and y’all will get what I mean. (Although I must admit, while I made yamato the bassist, yams is definitely more Brian May than John Deacon. On the other hand I can speak from personal experience though and, uh, from the drummers I …. uh ..... _met_ ….. genma is a drummer. no discussion.)
> 
> ANYWAY
> 
> now, enjoy!

The sun streams in warmly through the dusty windows and the dried leaves of the roses hanging in the kitchen window soak up all the delicious smells of the breakfast wafting over from the stove.

Maybe it's an effort in repentance for defiling the couch, maybe it's due to the option to spit in their food as an act of spite for calling what they did 'defiling', but Sakura has taken it upon herself to cook all breakfasts for the entire group for the remainder of their time here. With varying degrees of suspicion her offer was reluctantly accepted for the first time this morning.

Now she dances on light bare feet across the linoleum, wielding the hot pan they brought from home like an instrument and the sizzling of bacon and the tinny hum of the radio are her orchestra. Between cracking eggs and chopping scallions, she realises that she actually finds joy in cooking for more people than her and Kakashi. As she folds the third omelette in her pan carefully, she even thinks she's catching herself really putting in the love folks always talk about.

Considering why she's even cooking, she knows the others would be glad if she just left the love out of it for once though. It's been days and still no one dares touch the couch, let alone sit on it. Aside from Kakashi that is – he sees no point in shame whatsoever and lounges over the entirety of the vacated seats, his plate on his stomach and book in his hands. Both Sai and Iruka are gathered together with their empty plates on the floor at a corner of the coffee table, and Yamato has set up camp in the armchair furthest away from “ground zero”. Sakura turns up the mistuned radio over the grizzly white noise of Ino's hair dryer screaming from the bathroom, and swirls around to set Genma’s omelette in front of him with a broad white smile.

As soon as she started tinkering around with the various kitchen utensils and ingredients her mood brightened visibly. Not that she was in a foul mood before, but Genma feels practically blinded by her smile and her mood when she serves him now. She's like the sun to him and he is Icarus. He wants closer, _always closer;_ but differently than Icarus, he _knows_ his wings will melt if he lets himself get too close to her warmth. And the plunge toward the cold depths of the sea is not one, he thinks, he'd survive. So instead of keening toward his doom, he basks in these burning bright moments.

Turning to his steaming plate with fork in hand and a hole in his stomach, Genma is about to dig in when he sees something _green_. Dark green, but decidedly verdant and _out of place_ in his food. Carefully, with the very tips of his fork he picks out a squishy strip of the dubious ingredient and tastes it, scrunching his nose up immediately upon identifying it. He knows what this is.

“Sakura, there’s spinach in my omelette.”

“Yes.” She scowls at him, all brightness draining from her face in an instant, like clouds drawing in. “What about it?”

“I hate spinach,” he explains and returns her scowl.

“I know.” She says it like he’s stupid.

They both hold the other’s stare unyieldingly. Her brows furrow deeper as his shoulders draw up higher in exasperation. Eventually they both throw their hands up in unison in the same ‘what do you want from me here’ gesture. While the heat in her eyes is different now, it still scalds him painfully and Genma breaks eye contact first as he slaps his palm on the counter and turns over his shoulder to Kakashi. He can still feel her beryl glower pierce his skull until she resumes her work of pouring egg batter into the pan.

“Kakashi, why is your wife always being this bristly with me?” Glancing at Sakura's mostly bare back with a glower, he mutters under his breath, “or rather purposely an asshole.” He leans back on the bar stool instinctively when she spins back around from the stove with a positively wild look glinting in her eyes. Her loose bun bounces with the movement and multiple strands wriggle loose from around her face, adding to the look in a most angelic way. In the truest sense: wrathful and terrifying.

He doesn’t even want to think about the way her chest bounced in her thin ribbed white camisole.

Sensing imminent danger for his drummer, Kakashi swoops in casually like his saving grace – or at least something close to it.

“What do you mean bristly? You’re lucky she didn’t hit you with the pan,” he replies evenly, not sparing the agitated pair more than a cursory glance over the edge of his book.

“I still might!” Sakura supplies, shaking the spatula warningly in Genma’s direction, which he bats away much to her frustration.

"Don't give her ideas!" Genma barks but his voice has a definite undercurrent of true fear now.

Kakashi silences her with an amused chuckle from behind his pages before he tuts at his older friend, “Eat your food, brat.”

As much as they feel like the audience on the stands at times, Iruka and Yamato enjoy their spots as flies on the wall in moments like these. The back and forth is practically shakespearean in nature and the bassist and lead guitar supply the audience's laughter at the end of the scene. It's almost worth the withering glare of both Sakura and Genma.

A full four minutes of terse silence passes before Genma's fork clinks on the porcelain of his plate. He eats his omelette.

* * *

Beers in the scorching sand and wine coolers prepared on the terrace of their humble abode only go so far until the yearning for dance and music and proper cocktails strikes the group. Like a pack of predators on the prowl, they stalk the streets of the nearest little town after dark; sniffing and listening for rhythm and drink.

In a secluded area such as this, it is no Konoha after all, it doesn't take long for them to find the one place offering everything they're looking for. It signals itself through bright neon lights and plastic decor on the patio – Ino and Sakura are drawn to it like moths to flame immediately.

Once past the threshold, they can all come to agree that this is probably the most run down yet ideal little hole in the wall they could've ever wished for. None of them could tell what the clientele here exactly is; it kind of welcomes everyone. Country bar meets dive bar meets karaoke meets the local alcoholic's living room. _Charming_.

Still slightly buzzed from the past soft fuzz of day drinking, everyone’s bewitched and ready to get properly drunk. With the ease of a motion done a thousand times before, the group splits in two segments and assumes their silently communicated places. Turning on their heel, with whipping manes of blonde and pink, Ino and Sakura strike up an animated chat over the the mildly filled dance floor with the bright outdated disco lights, as they get the first round of drinks from the bar. The band and Sai scan the general area of the place and choose to take up residence at a small group of tables, right beside the tattered dart board hung up at a wooden post in line of sight of the dance floor.

Both Ino and Sakura draw eyes when they join them again with a pitcher of beer and seven glasses in their arms, but it's hardly due to the drinks. None of the other women around them dress quite as flashy, and frankly neither does Sakura usually.

But vacation is a different reality – a different world. Like airports; nothing matters and everything's allowed here. If she hadn't put on the silky little thing that dare itself call slip top, she would maybe never get a chance to do so again, or raid Ino's closet for more outrageously revealing pieces. Not that she thought it possible; this thing is made up of hardly more fabric than Genma's bandana, as it is tied around her chest in the same manner a handkerchief would be, but Sakura doesn't mind. Maybe next time she'll actually take Genma's bandana. If he lets her, that is. For tonight this cream silk, shining against her fresh light tan, will have to do; besides, it fits the faux leather pants practically painted on her body so much better than his raggedy bandana anyway.

So, considering her somewhat out of character outfit, she understands the stares and the hushed half sentences of gossip behind her back, but Sakura neither cares nor pays any attention to the rest of the bar. The two most important pairs of eyes are on her, the same way they have been all night already and that's all that matters.

At her side, Ino draws the most chatter like a lightning rod to herself anyway. No wonder. She is Lady Godiva revived in all her dancing queen glory. Sequinned and shining in bright silver and electric blue from head to toe, she is a blonde vision, here to blind them all.

The pitcher grows empty quickly and so do the glasses of the second round. The girls giggle and hold steadfast to each other and the bar as they wait for the drinks of their third round, while the thumping of the dart board comes behind like the rhythm of the music moving the bodies on the dance floor. As it gets later, the bar fills more but it's still no comparison to any of the crowded places they usually occupy. Not needing to use your elbows to get your drinks to your table in safety is surprisingly pleasant.

Unmoved from their previous spots, the guys are sat at their original two high tables, however the conversationalists have switched spots back and forth across the span of the evening. When their impromptu waitresses return to their line of sight, Kakashi and Sai are involved in light conversation with each other, as Genma seems to be the only one actually throwing darts at the board next to their tables. The score on the chalkboard only reads his own name anyway. With a little more gusto than necessary and spilling half their drinks, Ino sets down Iruka's and Yamato's orders in front of them, ready to bark back to their complaints and throw back her drink when her eye is drawn by Sakura and Genma.

Overly kindly, her lithe friend hands Genma his drink personally after she's delivered her husband's and Sai's courteously, without interrupting their conversation. Technically this is nothing out of the ordinary, the drummer and Sakura have been getting friendlier after all but something is tickling Ino's intuition and it's a bother. Her sky blue eyes never leave the pair as they exchange a couple words and affirmative nods; her instincts hum in her chest like a hive of bees and they sting. Sakura apparently asks Genma to teach her darts.

_The fuck? Sakura knows how to play darts._

If Ino didn't know any better she'd think her friend is flirting. _But that's insane, Kakashi is sitting **right there.**_

Sakura's eyes are full of light and wide and doe-like as she asks him to teach her; she can never get the angle right and his aim is _‘almost perfect’_. Her compliments roll down his throat like oil and Genma is too buzzed to pass up this chance to get in close contact. Her aim is wrong? He'll show her.

Hands on is the best approach in his opinion, theory can't compare by a mile. Without much further explanation, he takes his place behind Sakura and where his fingertips slide up her under arm, starting from her elbow, she feels her skin scorch. Of course she knows how to throw a dart, she's got an insane aim actually, but this is more than worth it. His touch is blinding to her and her chest feels light as air as she listens to his instructions whispered close to her ear. Giggling to mask her urge to moan she nods, and before long the dart flies and burrows as deep into the dart board as Sakura wishes he'd bury himself inside her.

With attentive and curious eyes Kakashi watches the interaction as he keeps up his conversation with Sai easily. At the other table though, Ino is practically zoned out completely and entirely distant from the conversation she had going previously with Yamato and Iruka. That nagging feeling at the base of her spine is growing to agonising levels and her brow furrows deeply as she observes the situation. Her mind is running hot trying to figure it out. It is only when Kakashi and Sakura exchange the briefest of heated glances, that she's practically struck by lightning with the realisation.

Her glassy blue eyes grow wide as the moon, and her mouth falls open in a wide, glossy 'O' as she sits up numbly.

"Oh my _god_."

At once Yamato's and Iruka's attention is drawn and they scowl at each other, abandoning their exchange mid sentence. Concerned and confused they turn to the blonde just in the right moment as they're both ripped off their seats by the shoulders of their shirts.

"Ino, what–" Iruka gasps, unable to still catch his drink the way Yamato did as Ino's grip tightens to steel.

"Not here," she hisses, hardly subtle, and drags them practically by the collar out to the small smoking area, adorned with bamboo and tacky colourful lanters. _What are they, dogs?_ They each grumble when she finally unfurls her fingers from their collars.

“I _finally_ know what's going on!" She exclaims gleefully as soon as the balmy night air hits, but the two men just stare back in even deeper confusion.

"Ino, what are you even talking about?" Iruka tries gently, as if it would untangle the situation any faster when she is _this_ excited.

“Ok so, we all know Genma is hopelessly in love with Sakura, right?”

The sentence hits like a sledgehammer and both Yamato and Iruka blink dumbfounded before they speak in unison, “Wait, _what?”_

Ino returns their stare blandly, blinking back at them while something dies behind her irises. Is everyone around her willfully blind or just dumb as fuck?

Exhaling in a resigned huff through her nose, the blonde claps her hands together in front of her ample chest before pointing to herself with both hands.

“Ok, so, _I_ knew that Genma is hopelessly in love with Sakura. Since like, always.”

It takes a moment of further astonished silence, but Yamato begins to nod slowly in agreement. The pieces of all the odd moments and off-feeling situations are coming slowly together in his mind like puzzle pieces. With every passing second, it all starts to make sense. As though Ino turned the picture around 180 degrees and he can see that he’s been looking at it upside down the entire time.

Iruka on the other hand looks like he’s having an identity crisis. Coming to the same realization as Yamato in the same timespan; however, on a wildly more violent path and definitely not an ounce as understanding as the bassist. Ino treating it as though this was just _A Thing_ that everyone was supposed to know has him deeply questioning his attentiveness. On everything. Not to mention what this even means for the band– _Oh god, will the band break up?_ His thoughts are spiralling and it shows in his dark eyes and the upturned twitch of his brow.

As empathetic as she usually may be, Ino has no sympathy for the poor sod in this moment. She has bigger and far more important – and therefore apparently traumatizing – news to announce. The fact that he wasn’t up to speed isn’t _her_ problem. With a pissed off roll of her eyes she practically rips Yamato’s whiskey glass from his hands and thrusts it into Iruka’s.

“Alright, pity party over, Umino,” she barks and forcefully lifts his hand grabbing the glass numbly to his lips. “Hurry up! If Genma could live with this for seven years, you can too. We don’t have all night, chop chop.” For emphasis she claps her hands and is almost ready to pour the drink down his throat herself if he didn’t move right then.

Irritated by her callous tone Iruka grimaces at the impatient bombshell but chugs half the drink handed to him anyway. Both to his surprise and annoyance, it actually does calm some of the suddenly seasick nausea in his stomach.

“Ino, just get to the point,” Yamato’s voice comes sharp with annoyance as he watches Iruka drink _his_ whiskey. First, he’s slam dunked with a realization that changes everything, then he’s robbed of his drink and now she’s taking forever to even make it worth his time. “If this was just your _preamble_ , then what the hell are you trying to say?”

Immediately, the sun comes out. The frown on Ino’s forehead smoothes and a practical light beams from within her, golden and bright, when she smiles. Smug and sly and downright salivating, she eyes the two men before her like a hungry jackal.

“Sakura and Kakashi are trying to fuck Genma,” she exclaims triumphantly. “And more. But mostly fuck, I think.”

Again, a wrecking ball of a statement but differently than before, all their shock seems to have absorbed now. Or at least turned inward as Iruka's face scrunches up one more time and he tips the glass back again for the second half. Yamato on the other hand has turned over his shoulder now and observes the troublesome trio from their spot. Even if he hates it, Ino has a point.

Not that he can put his finger specifically on what exactly confirms her theory, but he definitely sees her point. It's too intimate. Too tense between them but not angry enough to hide a deeper issue. Smart as ever, his mind is rewinding the film of his memory back and again – everything slots into place. All the off-kilter situations even out and every odd gut feeling rights itself. Calmer and less critical of the entire premise now, Iruka's dark eyes are focused on the three in question, too, and he quirks a brow in acknowledgement.

"Huh," the bassist huffs and runs his hand through his short hair. "What does that mean for us?"

"Of course we're helping!" Ino exclaims exasperatedly. "We have to put that poor guy out of his misery, I can't watch that any longer."

"And how exactly are we going to do that?" Iruka frowns, swishing the ice in his glass from side to side as he swings his wrist.

Maybe that wasn't such a good question, because the look on Ino's face is straight up devious when she grins, "Don't worry your pretty little head about that. For now, just leave it to me."

* * *

So far, Kakashi and Sakura muse to themselves, everything's going well. Somewhat according to their essentially non-existent plan even, but just as Sakura makes herself comfortable, squeezed in between the space between Kakashi's and Genma's chairs, she feels slim bejewelled hands dig into her shoulders.

Suddenly the beat of a song Sakura would know asleep thrums over the speakers, so forcefully it changes the rhythm of her heart, and before she can even react to it past a gasp, Ino is ripping her off her bar stool by the shoulders and squealing in her ear, "Sakura, this is _your_ song!"

As soon as her feet hit the sticky dance floor she can feel the adrenaline mingled with the alcohol rush through her veins like rivers in spring. No, Ino didn't interrupt her plans, she _vastly improved_ how they were going. Usually it's the guys putting on a show, but tonight? Tonight it's her chance to reverse the roles and she wouldn't be herself if she didn't put her all into it.

From the spot that they picked, the dance floor is easily visible and so is the little circle that Ino and Sakura are swaying and shimmying in now. To their luck the people here seem to be more into pool and karaoke at most rather than dancing, and the floor isn't packed yet, leaving them enough space. Not that they even need it; perhaps used to it from overcrowded clubs, the two leave hardly a handful of inches between their bodies as they dance with each other and Kakashi knows already that this is about to be as good as it'll be bad.

Sakura's arms are loosely slung over Ino's shoulders and she can feel her manicure catch on the waistband of her pants. The glint in Ino's depthless blues alone tells her that this is about to be _fun_.

More pairs and groups of girlfriends occupy the space between them as the bar becomes aware of the song playing, but their bubble stays undisturbed and Sakura catches Kakashi's eye just as the first vocals hit their ears.

Her lips are glossy and cherry red and _hypnotic,_ as she confidently sings along to the pre-chorus. Like this is all she's ever done, she swings her hips in a large figure eight and disconnects from Ino's grip now as they put a little distance between them. They twirl and twist and as the main lines come on, she catches Kakashi's smouldering charcoal gaze and shakes her head at her husband teasingly while scrunching her nose up at him.

_"A domesticated girl, that's all you ask of me. Darling, it is no joke, this is lycanthropy!"_

Defiantly she flashes him a toothy grin full of canines and he can't help the laugh bubble from his chest but Sakura pretends to not notice as she hooks her arm around Ino's neck again.

_"The moon's awake now, with eyes wide open,"_ for dramatic effect Sakura's eyes flit to Ino and she giggles before she rolls her whole body into the happily receiving blonde. Genma's teeth grind down hard on his toothpick as he's pinned by her heavy lidded gaze. _"My body's craving, so feed the hungry."_

His mouth is dry and feels full of cotton, she's knocked all wind out of him simply by echoing the song's lyrics. And that's what it is, right? Just the lyrics, not an actual command. He can't put into words just how much he wishes it was an actual command.

As though handing over the mic, Sakura only sways her body in sensuous movements to most of the next verses that her best friend is now singing to her, _"I've been devoting myself to you Monday to Monday and Friday to Friday, not getting enough retribution o_ _r decent incentives to keep me at it!"_

Weren't it for Ino grabbing her by the chin Sakura's head would loll languidly on her shoulders until Ino snaps her hip to hers by a swift pull of her wrist and she laughs breathlessly, joining back into the song, " _I'm starting to feel just a little abused, like a coffee machine in an office––"_

It's clear now: Ino has made up her mind and she really meant it when she said, she'd help the couple. This is a prime example. She releases Sakura's chin swiftly, and with almost shameful gusto she buries her hand at Sakura's wild, disheveled roots before she pulls _hard_ ; just in sync to the song. Both the singer on track and Sakura gasp a near moan and Ino sees exactly the way Kakashi shuffles with an appreciate quirk of his brow and Genma drown himself in his gin tonic.

As much as Ino's supporting act surprised her, Sakura doesn't mind nor does she miss a single beat and cups the blonde's delicate face in return as she pulls her in. Ino can't tell if Sakura's green eyes meet her husband's or her hopefully soon to be lovers, but certainly not hers.

Yet when Sakura's soft lips brush her cheek, Ino can't help but grin at her best friend's breathy voice, _"So I'm gonna go somewhere cozy to get me a lover and tell you about it."_

_How fitting._ For a split second both Ino and Sakura wonder separately if the other knows of their planning and scheming, but the understanding is mutual: No matter the outcome, this right now is a fantasy and _everyone_ benefits from it.

To not be too on the nose with it, they separate again from their intimately tight embrace and swing themselves giddily to the beat with wild giggling and laughter. High with adrenaline and fuelled by the light hearted energy of all the girls dancing around them and feeling themselves, Sakura even howls along with the chorus.

As though the chorus was just a breathing break for the guys enraptured by the show, Ino pulls Sakura back into her embrace.

" _Sitting across the bar, staring right at her prey_ ," Ino's voice comes rich and low at her ear as Sakura nestles her back into Ino's chest, swinging their hips in unison as they are practically welded together. The goosebumps her rough singing voice draws from her ripple all across her body. _"It's going well so far, she's gonna get her way."_

Kakashi's grin grows wider by the minute and Genma is sure he's sweating buckets. Their thoughts are similar in kind but entirely different in sentiment. Where her husband's chest swells with pride (and his pants with arousal) at this exquisitely _hot_ teasing of both himself and their 'prey', Genma's chest feels like caving in because this is _torture_ of the most delicious kind. Does she know what she's doing to him? Does she know how much this turns him on and pains him at the same time?

Silent as ever, Yamato observes the entire dynamic and he recalls Ino's earlier words: _We have to put that poor guy out of his misery._ But are they really? The tension in Genma's grip on his glass screams agony.

On the floor, Sakura's eyes slide shut as she and Ino sing the next line in tandem.

" _Nocturnal creatures are not so prudent,"_ completely entwining themselves into a very tight spooning position, Sakura's hand slides up Ino's neck and into her blonde roots as her hips grind, _"t_ _he moon's my teacher and I'm her student."_

Her green eyes almost flutter shut at the feeling of Ino's feminine curves providing some much desired friction, but this isn't who tonight is about. With laser like focus she zeroes in on Genma and almost in an instant the bar and all its inhabitants fall away, and the two are back on the beach, days prior. The intensity of the their eye contact and the implication is the same down to every detail but at least Sakura can hint more graphically at what she'd like him to do to her now.

On beat the bangle on Ino's wrist jingles as her hand bears down on the faux leather clad curve of Sakura's arse. Both women laugh, albeit Sakura over a gasp of surprise and even the table of their audience can't escape a hearty chuckle at the two nudging each other playfully on the floor now. It grows richer as Ino mimes looking across the crowd with a hand above her eyes to shield herself from the imaginary sun as she acts out the next lines.

_"To locate the single men_ _I've got on me a special radar,"_ Ino throws her best friend a wink as she drags her close one more time by the waist, _"And the fire department's hotline_ _in case I get in trouble later."_

Sakura shoves her by the shoulder dramatically as she vocalises with a pointed gaze up at the tall blonde, " _Not looking for **cute little divas** \- like YOU! -_ _that just want to enjoy–_ "

But Ino barely moves an inch and she knows this song by heart as much as Sakura does. Her slender fingers don't lift at the shove and instead they just slide lower from her waist, to grip her butt tight as Sakura's head snaps around to the two men of her desire, _"I'm having a very good time and behave very bad in the arms of a boy."_

It's involuntary but both Genma and Kakashi let out a strangled groan, unseeing of the two vixens swinging apart from each other in languid, fluid movements. Burning with shame, Genma immediately rips the toothpick from his lips and fake coughs into the crook of his elbow, hiding the burning flush behind his near empty drink immediately. Not that he knows that, but Kakashi heard him anyway and he can't wait to tell Sakura in detail about it later. Or tomorrow. Everyone is pretty buzzed and he has a feeling that this night isn't going to end in long heart to hearts as much as drunkenly falling into the sleep of the dead.

Genma however knows that sleep won't find him tonight. His album of memories that will haunt him until his death just keeps filling and filling, and he knows this entire scene will play on repeat in his head for the remainder of the night.

* * *

Several drinks deeper, it is time to cart the drunk disco divas home as they're practically kicked out along with the very last patrons spelunking around the bar. When Sakura and Ino dragged each other accidentally off their chairs it was game over for them and the group now stumbles down the dirt road.

"Ino, I'm convinced these shoes you gave me–" Sakura hiccups as she latches onto the back of Genma's shirt for support to pry off said stilettos, while he freezes into a pillar of salt as her nails dig into his back, "–were an attempt to assassinate me. Or at least my ankles."

Ino grunts a callous laugh and swings her own already discarded heel at her girl friend, "Don't be a baby, Haruno. They served you and your ass well all night." 

Kakashi laughs over his wife's grumble and bumps his knuckles against Ino's outstretched ones in acknowledgement, "Thanks for that by the way, her ass _did_ look great."

They barely walk a few more yards until the blonde falls even behind Iruka, half asleep but still walking, supported dutifully by Sai and Yamato on each side. It's only moments later that her butt thumps hard on the curb and she growls, "Can't we call a cab? I can't _possibly_ walk the entire way back home!"

In drunken solidarity Sakura agrees promptly and sinks down into the dirt next to her, stretching her legs out long and leaning back on her hands.

"Guys, come on, it's really not that far," Genma groans and runs his hand through his hair. In the humid summer night he grew a little too hot under the bandana and stuffed it into the pocket of his shorts earlier that evening. "Besides, where the hell would we get a cab here? We're in the middle of absolutely nowhere."

"He's right," Kakashi nods and kneels down in fron of his wife, running his thumb along her cheek he tries to catch her eyes, but Sakura just plays with his silver hair. "Come on, Sakura, you know he's right."

When she doesn't give an answer and continues to pout silently, he sighs. "Fine, I'll carry you."

"Excuse me! And what about me?" Ino complains and boxes Kakashi weakly in the shoulder. He takes a glance back at her own boyfriend but he seems to have his hands full with Iruka as it is. Only when he lets his gaze wander back to Ino to tell her to figure it the hell out herself, he catches the faintest nod of her head toward his other shoulder and it clicks instantly between them.

"Hey Genma, can you take Ino, plea–"

But the blonde cuts in like a knife, "Absolutely _not!_ If Genma touches me in any way, I _will_ scream!"

"Oh, you sure will," Genma fires back fast as a bullet but Ino fires her shoe at him in return with the force of a rifle.

_Oh, she's good._ The singer has to bite the inside of his cheek to suppress his laugh before he sighs dramatically.

"Fine. Genma take Sakura on your back, I'll carry Ino."

As expected, his chocolate brown eyes bug out of his head and Sakura perks right up from her boozy slouch. She can easily overplay it with the excitement of not having to walk, but Kakashi knows better and squeezes her thigh in silent acknowledgement.

The two drunk girls awkwardly climb on their unsteady steeds and they set to walk. It's a soothing swing from side to side on their backs and Ino is quickly rocked to sleep like a baby, leaning her head to Kakashi's back.

On the other hand Sakura is very attentive and Genma is sure he's done something absolutely _heinous_ in a past life to deserve such a night. It's not just her chin resting on his shoulder or his hands holding onto her firm, amazing thighs, but _no_ , she is also playing with the hair at the back of his neck as he breathes heavily around his toothpick.

"Genma, have you ever thought about cutting your hair?" Her drunk slur is sweet as cherry wine to him and knocks him almost as unsuspectingly as the sweet liquor on his arse when she murmurs in his ear.

To mask his discomfort he shakes his head and hitches her up higher on his back before he chuckles, "No, never. Why?" After barely a beat he adds, "Does that have to go too, like my toothpick?"

Sakura slaps him across the back of his head but it's soft and lacks her usual sharp bite. He can feel her chest vibrate against his back as she laughs.

"No, the opposite! Please don't cut it, I like it like this," if her words weren't balm enough on his soul, she buries her hand at his roots and gathers a hearty fistful. "I like the way you can really dig in and hold onto it."

Sweat rolls down his temple and Genma is glad Sakura is on his back. This way she can't see the furious blush dusting his cheeks a deep crimson. He clears his throat and slips his usual act on like a suit of armour, "And why would that concern you?"

She's already said too much but she can't deny herself this last pleasure. 'Bristly' as he called her, Sakura pulls on his hair hard again, listening closely for the hitch in his breath.

"Just take the compliment, jackass." 

* * *

Back at home, everyone is easy to handle; like drowsy drunk children they require little more than being put to bed with a water bottle and a kiss to their head. Even Iruka got one – or three, if only as a joke by the rest of his band members each.

In less than twenty minutes, the small bungalow is quiet again and aside from Genma and Kakashi sat on the terrace with a last nightcap, slumber envelops the temporary home soothingly. Neither is drunk enough to fall asleep right away and Genma still feels like he has birds in his chest from the entire night's events. His best friend's silence and an ice cold glass of whiskey are just the kind of soothing he needs right now.

They sit in amicable quiet for a handful of sips until Kakashi nudges him across the garden chairs.

"I'm glad you two have been getting along so well the past couple of months," he says and he knows that Genma needs no further explanation.

Since that night two months ago, that kind of kickstarted their whole operation, Sakura has really made headway in getting closer to the drummer. She built an honest connection out of nowhere with him and Kakashi was surprised himself at how much he enjoyed watching her fall in love with someone he's been so close with for so long already.

All gentle sweetness and budding proximity aside though, Kakashi also witnessed pain in Genma, and its steady growth the closer Sakura pulls him. She's getting bolder, too. Her strikes hit deeper; the breathing room between pleasure and pain diminishes. Not considerably but she's working on it.

To overplay his uneasiness and all uninvited thoughts on the matter, Genma snorts and teases his friend, “Were you astral projecting this morning at breakfast?”

Now Kakashi snorts and they both laugh, but he shakes his head affectionately as he nudges him again, decidedly harder this time.

"Would you just shut up for once, you knucklehead?"

"Alright, alright, if you wanna get sappy, be my guest," Genma teases further but twirls his toothpick from side to side and Kakashi knows that he's ready to listen.

“Look, I know Tenzo and I know each other longer than you and I do, but, you know it’s different between them," he says and takes a sip of his drink. "Sakura and Tenzo garden together, did you know? Besides, they got this whole Jedi type silent understanding, and it has nothing to do with me. At all.

"Which is good. With you two, though... I was always a little worried. You're my closest friend since more than ten years, and I was getting really tired of that semi aggressive tango you guys were dancing. I was ready to ask you to punch it out – and trust me, Sakura would've put you on your ass – but I’m glad that things are getting more initimate between you guys.”

Heart to hearts of this kind were never Genma's favourite. They always touched him deeper than he felt they should, and as a knee jerk reflex he always killed the tension with a stupid joke.

Just like he has the urge to do now. His mouth opens already and one corner quirks upward with the quip he's got at the tip of his tongue but Kakashi holds up a hand in warning, “Get your head out of the gutter, I’m trying to be sincere here. It really means a lot to me.”

And just like that all his cracks and one-liners die in his throat. Guilt stabs his heart like needles and Genma can't bear to look his friend in the eye. _If only you knew what I wish for_.

As if he knows – _because he does_ – Kakashi breaks the building tension and laughs. A little shakily, Genma joins.

Their drinks are near empty at this point and once their laughter dies down to a mere chuckle, the silver haired man lifts from his seat as he claps Genma's shoulder.

"Seriously, how did that happen anyway? Did you scrub her back in the bath then or what did you two get up to?" It's his turn to tease now, yet what Genma doesn't know is that Sakura never told Kakashi.

She kept this to herself for once. _Tonight was private, only between him and me,_ she had said and while it tasted odd at first, Kakashi respected that. _They have their own relationship now._

A little nervously still, Genma struggles to breathe at first, but he shrugs it off with a sly wink and a grin, "None of your business. That's between Sakura and me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so what did you think? i'm really unsure with the quality of this chapter
> 
> thanks for all your support and love <3


	5. under my spell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello sweet readers, this chapter is a little less tense than the other two were and mostly just silliness but i hope you enjoy the tour shenanigans anyway! there shall be a little bit of hot angst after this
> 
> as a side note to this chapter now though: I’m realising I made genma lowkey whiney in this chapter and I don’t think that’s entirely canon or super in character (I’m personally not a fan of it either) but it works out the best for the story and I’m hoping that it’s not too much of a hiccup to be honest. as always though, please leave me your thoughts, this should be the only chapter that portrays him in this way!
> 
> thanks to the awesome [NeonKnights](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeonKnight/profile) for being my beta! <3  
> (we die like women now – beta'd)
> 
> now, enjoy <3

With the hangover comes the creeping feeling of nausea, the cold sweat and the choking sensation of guilt. Kakashi’s words, his sentimentalities about his best friend and his wife becoming _close_ , becoming _friends_ and nothing more, rained down on him like bullets. The impulse to simply scream in agony, give air to words and aches, threatens to crack his ribs apart and he presses his pillow to his face in frustration.

Almost desperately he tries to soothe himself with frantic hands and rhythmic mental chants of _“everything will be better on tour”_ ; even if he knows it’s a damn dirty lie. This vacation was meant to be a taste of what the next year will bring. Of the confines and the fun and the fights. She picked that cleverly. As stingy as he knows Hatake to be, it’ll be just like the two tours before. Various hotels but always one shared apartment suite for everyone. The most privacy you will get, will be your room and maybe the closet in it. This right now is really not too far off.

Then a thought strikes him and his muscles cramp with this acidic, intrusive idea.

_Does he know? Is this his wicked plan of retaliation? The drawn out death for lusting over his wife?_

Genma’s head is already swimming, pickled in whiskey and bile, and the ache of betrayal, the shame of it, claws at his skin painfully before his voice of reason cuts through. Deep and dark and dismissive: _He’s your best friend, he wouldn’t do that. Even if he does know, he wouldn’t be cruel. At most he pities you._

Kakashi’s words from the night before and their echo make its rounds around his skull and with a sigh, he weighs his options. Rationality will help, no? The honest choice would be to come right out with the issue, pull the trigger and kill this whole thing. Brash and hard but probably the most straightforward option. Yet it is not an option because that would mean the whole tour would be cancelled, the band broken up and he can’t even begin to think of what opening that can of worms entails else.

So, _not_ a choice. Instead there’s the second option, the one he’s been choosing all along: Stay the friend. _Her_ friend as much as his. That part is new but the more he thinks of it, the faster his heart beats. She _talks_ to him now. She gives him her attention and seeks him out – as Kakashi said, it’s kind of intimate between them now.

Genma already has his answer right there. Not that there would be another option, not one he’d consider over his dead body at least. It’s the same thing as the past seven years, she just ingrained it deeper into him now: Sakura grants him a sliver of her brilliance, a fraction of what Kakashi gets to revel in daily and Genma cannot bring himself to ruin it. Not for anything in the world.

Swallowing hard he resigns himself to the same old fate and rests his head on the worn out mattress.

If he could keep it down for seven years, why should it become a problem now?

* * *

At the end of the week they pack their suitcases and cars with sure hands and excitement crackling like electricity between them all.

How Sakura can sleep soundly in the backseat is beyond both Kakashi and Genma in the front.

“Excited?” Kakashi asks with a quirk of his brow over the coffee cup raised to his lips.

“For an eight-hour drive? No,” Genma laughs and lightly taps the heel of his palm to the steering wheel, not taking his eyes off the road.

“Just pray Sakura doesn’t wake up and forces us to stop for food,” Kakashi laughs too and nods vaguely to the back seat, “But I actually meant for the tour. Been a while and this vacation was… nice, I gotta say.”

The grin on Genma’s face freezes exactly as it is, and he chews his anxiety around his toothpick deliberately. With a hasty glance to the rearview mirror that grants him a perfect view of Sakura’s sleeping face, he shrugs, “Sure. Her idea, huh?”

In mock offense his friend claps a hand to his chest and fake gasps, “Excuse me, do you not think me capable of planning something like this?”

“Not even at gunpoint,” Genma deadpans and they both break into a hearty laugh.

“She had a full powerpoint presentation, man,” Kakashi explains through residual chuckles and the wooden beads of the passenger seat cover click as he looks over his shoulder properly. “I think she just wanted everyone to get super close before we’re trapped in various suites for twelve months.”

“You say that like it’s a prison sentence,” his driver snorts. “It’s not like we’ll all be joined at the hip.”

“I know, tell her that,” the front man sighs and fishes a fresh pack of cigarettes from the glove box before rolling down the window. “‘Guess, she was just really anxious because things were kind of awkward between you two.”

The clump from Genma’s throat has now slipped down into his stomach and with every pothole it bounces in him, heavy like a bowling ball.

Kakashi grins. The way Genma raps his knuckles in a rapid pace against the steering wheel is a dead giveaway and the non-committal hum he answers with doesn’t match it.

“She sure took care of that,” the brunette eventually answers, but the grin he gives the wide country road ahead of them is strained and mirthless. “To answer your question though, yeah. I’m excited.” _Lies._ He’s _terrified._

Rustling from the backseat cuts the conversation and all surrounding thought short though and Kakashi sees exactly the way Genma’s dark eyes flit to the rearview mirror.

Sprawled all across the spacious backseat as if it was her kingsize bed at home, Sakura yawns and stretches languidly, rubbing sleep from her eyes and brushing her fingertips through her roots before she turns to the front of the van. It’s hard to say which pair of eyes she meets first, but it must be Genma’s, since they are the only ones that disappear as he redirects his gaze back to the road.

“What time is it?” Her voice is raspy and her jade irises still glassy from her nap, so she blinks against the sun with her nose wrinkled as she crawls to lean between the two front seats. “Have you boys eaten yet? I know you haven’t. Next chance you get, pull over, okay?”

Since it was a request directed at him, Genma nods mechanically, deaf to the world and her command as he ignores the sound of the soft wet kiss she presses to her husband’s lips. When her hand touches his arm, he almost jerks the steering wheel and Sakura’s voice comes even softer now from where she leans her chin on his seat, “C’mon, you need to rest. Just a little break, yeah?”

As if he could deny her, he smiles and agrees.

* * *

Apparently giving concerts is like riding a bike. You just don’t forget how to do it, and as soon as you’re doing it everything comes naturally. _Everything_.

With the music comes the routine. With the routine come the beers, and with the beers come the hangovers.

In a truly impressive performance of the dying swan, Genma is more or less quietly bemoaning his current fate on a couch in the band’s dressing room one particular night. According to Sai’s apathetic declaration, the show _will_ start in less than hour. _With_ or without him. Everyone else is less confident in that and Kakashi’s agitated pacing is beginning to make Sakura sick.

To her left Yamato releases a shuddery breath as he wrings his hands, in what she thinks is silent prayer at first but recognises as restraint, when his hiss meets her ear, “Somebody do something or I will strangle him with my bare hands.”

“As if you would kick a man when he’s down,” Genma barks back from his self-declared death bed and covers his light sensitive eyes with the untied bandana to repeat the same thing he’s said the past hour, “I don’t think I can play.”

“You sure as hell can or help me god, I will make you,” Kakashi growls now and comes to a halt across the room as he stares daggers at his drummer. It’s not even directed at them and still everyone but Sakura retreats further into their seats at his tone of voice.

“Kakashi, I _mean_ it. I can’t even tie my lucky bandana!”

The scoff escaping the front man’s chest is unnaturally high pitched and really, _someone_ should step in.

As the only one fairly unfazed by Kakashi’s temper or Genma’s overly dramatic antics, Sakura sneers and rolls her eyes, “How is it lucky?”

Sensing a prime opening, Genma tugs the piece of fabric in question off his face and kisses it affectionately, earning a groan from everybody else trapped in the room, “You know, it perks me right up when I have a hangover for example.” He has no idea where he’s going with this but before he can overthink it, he winks at her.

This time when she rolls her eyes, she’s sure they’ll get stuck. _Fucking idiot._

“Huh, does it now?” Determined now to put an end to this, Sakura clicks her tongue and slips off the dressing table she sat on so far. His eyes grow wide and hers narrow. As though cornering her prey, a dangerous glint flares up behind her emerald eyes and now Genma _actually_ feels like dying. “Fine, if it kicks your ass off that couch, I’ll tie it for you.”

There’s no time or room for anyone to react as Sakura takes long strides and swings her leg over him. Right before everyone’s eyes she takes a seat on his stomach. Deep down she’d prefer to straddle his hips outright, but this not the time nor the place, and frankly? She’s pissed at him. Hangover him is not pleasant and his belt buckle digging into her, right below her tailbone is the physical reminder of that.

Sprung to life through panic, Genma scrambles beneath her but Sakura holds on as if taming a steed and shifts her weight back through his protests, “Hey, what are you doing?”

“Tying your bandana since you’re being a huge baby! Now hand it over,” she sighs with an edge of annoyance to her tone and holds out her outstretched hand.

He’s still sputtering and at least the tension in the room is dissipating into patronizing chuckles as his anxiety skyrockets, “No, Sakura, you really don’t have to, I was kidd—“

“I said, hand it over, Shiranui!”

It was likely her tone that commanded him into obedience but as he meekly hands her the bandana, Genma does realise that the sooner she gets done, the sooner she’ll be off his waist again and they can all forget about this. If Ino wouldn’t pull out that film camera and– _ah, fuck._

Still a little blinded from the flash, Genma blinks up at Sakura but glances away again quickly when she bends down to get to work. She’s so close he can feel her breath on his face.

When she lays the fabric against his forehead though, he stops her gently by the wrist, “No, no, no you need to tie it in front.” He almost wishes he hadn’t said anything. The flare of fire in her eyes is dangerous but at least the way her brow arches gives him hope that she’s willing to listen.

Sakura sighs. “Why?”

He’ll regret what he says next, but he just can’t let opportunities like this pass him by.

“Because I look much better that way,” against his better judgement he doubles down and gives her a lazy grin and a wink, accompanied by an up and down click of his toothpick.

Genma was right and her punishment is a swift slap across the side of his head.

“Idiot,” she chides but her frown looks fake even to him and the tenderness of her fingers brushing the hair back into place is the ultimate betrayal.

Something slips sideways in him when she leans in again to tie it the way he asked her to, and when he looks up at her, Genma can’t help it. He smiles affectionately around his toothpick and his murmur comes even softer, only meant for her ears, "Actually, that's just how my mom always tied it for me when I was a kid. She didn't really know, or care, about what was considered cool and just did it to keep my hair out of my eyes."

Her hands stutter almost as hard as her heart and Sakura inwardly _melts_ at his admission. This is private to him though, and she intends to keep this from the prying ears and eyes all around her, so she doesn’t let on how much his divulgence affects her past a very soft smile.

"That was sweet of her," she breathes out eventually and makes sure to keep her voice low. He nods, and Sakura looks down at him then. Something about his eyes will forever draw her in like the pull of a maelstrom and her heartbeat gallops as she finishes tying the knot.

It’s barely a couple of seconds before Sakura decides for once that the eye contact and general intimacy gets a little too tense for her liking, right in front of everyone, and she clears her throat before sitting back on her heels. To her surprise no one is paying avid attention to the pair as she thought they would and she relaxes in her seat on his stomach, eyeing him again but with much more scrutiny as she points to the toothpick he's lazily playing with. _Gotta change the topic._

"Did she never say anything about _that_?"

"Oh, all the time," He grins back, and Sakura knows she needs to get off him. _Now._ With a shake of her head she slides off but to his surprise, she takes the toothpick with her.

“Hey!” Genma protests at the theft but Sakura’s eyes are narrowing at him again. As though it is a weapon, she points the wooden pick at him as her unoccupied hand comes to rest on her hip.

“One day you’re gonna choke on this or seriously hurt yourself. Don’t come crying to me then!”

The way she chastises him shouldn’t excite him so much. But after so many years of banter and snark, it draws a certain thrill out of him, and he has a feeling Kakashi feels similarly. Sakura is so full of life and passion and rage, it’s addictive to stoke the embers and coax the heat out of her.

So, no, he can’t bite back neither the smirk nor his cocky answer, “Yes, ma’am.”

* * *

The late september sun is still sleepy and soft as it lifts itself drowsily across the jagged skyline of the city. In contrast to the sun’s softness, the door to Genma's room in the apartment suite swings open with enough force to shatter the earth.

One moment he's dead asleep, lost in a dream he won't recall, then in the next a body flings itself less than gracefully onto his bed right beside him. Elbows and knees dig into his ribs and hip. Within seconds his body is jerked awake crudely, but his mind still lags; the bold intruder has taken to making herself at home and rips the pillow from beneath his tousled head to hug it tightly to her chest.

Ruffled and roused physically, yet his mind is stuck in trance between dream and reality. Somewhere between that is the warmth of her skin and the razor sharp elbow sliding against his as she keeps shifting around in the sheets.

“ _What the–_ ” Genma groans, voice rough with sleep and his mouth cottony. Her scent hits him first before her hair tickles his cheek and his mind has trouble comprehending the situation. Is he still dreaming? Did he wake up to _her_? _Is **she** here? _

“Sakura?”

“Genma, I need someone to talk," she sighs deeply.

Her shoulder presses flush up against his now but he hardly even registers that past his heartbeat stuttering. Confused and still fairly alarmed by her ambush, he croaks out, “What?”

“Do you think I should go back to school?” Over the tone of concern he can practically hear her bite her lip.

“What time is it even," he asks half heartedly and his deep baritone comes even rougher now with annoyance as he blindly feels for the edge of the nightstand and the alarm clock.

Sakura is having none of that though and with an agitated scoff, she smacks his chest with the pillow.

“Time to _listen_!”

A startled huff of air escapes his chest upon impact with the light down pillow but he stays undeterred and checks the clock. Barely past seven and she is already this wired? _Lord help Kakashi._

The pillow returns to her chest and he can hear the hitch in her breath just when she is about to say something, but then Sakura stills. Her mind was running a million miles a minute but has come to a dead halt at a sudden sensation. Or more so the awareness of it.

With the way she practically shimmied up to him, not just their shoulders press against each other, but their thighs do too. Sakura is aware that her admittedly skimpy night shorts are bunched up from her shuffling, _but how high did his boxer shorts ride up during the night?_

Curiously she peers down her side where skin meets skin, and her brows furrow hard at what she sees. His hip is bare. No shred of fabric past the linen of the duvet to be seen.

Redirecting her gaze to the ceiling, she bites her lip again. If only to keep her grin from splitting her face, before she starts, "Genma."

His eyes are closed again in pursuit of fleeting sleep and he only gives her a hum to signal that he is begrudgingly listening.

“Do you sleep naked?”

His instincts roll faster than his mind does. Half asleep again, he is drowsy and thusly answers her bluntly as though she asked a stupid question, “Uh, yeah.”

Sakura wants to scream with excitement, she can feel it sing in her chest, but she chooses a different path to show her appreciation: Sakura smacks him with the pillow again.

“You’re filthy,” she chides with a click of her tongue as she scrunches up her face in acted displeasure. After a beat a well groomed pink brow arches though and chances another look down at him. Now focusing decidedly closer on his loins rather than his hip, “You’re not hard right now, are you?”

Genma can't say if it was the second hit with the pillow that got him awake or the abrupt change of topic, but he's got that beehive in his chest again and Sakura is just too damn close. In an effort to at least break the contact at their shoulders, he pushes up onto his elbows and gives himself a silent pep talk to remain calm and cool as usual. Her question though almost draws a laugh from him.

Unknowingly following her gaze, he looks down himself and then down at her. It almost stops his heart, because fuck, that's a sight he could get used to easily. Even with a scowl, she looks perfect and radiant to him. Her hair that tickled him before is splayed around her in a wild, dishevelled halo and her cheeks glow with a flush. _Angelic and sinful._

This is indulgent though and Genma can't afford to let himself get lost in a fantasy of what it would be like to wake up to this daily, so with a click of his tongue he throws her an easy, lazy grin.

“Trust me, if I was hard right now, you’d know.”

The tease lands like a well aimed arrow and Sakura's eyes widen along with her jaw dropping. _Again_ , she smacks him with the pillow. But now he actually sees her biting her lip to hide her spreading grin before it dissolves into a dirty laugh.

"You really are filthy! Don't let Kakashi hear you talk like this to me," she jibes, but Genma is hardly fazed and nudges her now.

"Hey, you thought of my dick first."

_Sure did,_ Sakura thinks to herself as she feigns mock outrage with a high pitched gasp. One last time she swings the pillow like a sledgehammer but isn't prepared for him to actually catch it this time. Easily at that, only the worn out loose leather bracelet swings on his wrist. Her eye is drawn like moth to flame to where his fingers dig hard into the soft fabric and her stomach pulls tight at the sight.

_Oh. That was hot. Fuck, why is this turning me on?_

“Sakura, stop hitting on me for god’s sake!” he laughs and places the pillow beside him, opposite of her.

“I was not–“ Still outwardly fuming, she scoffs exasperatedly and smacks his chest with her bare hand this time, "You are so full of yourself, you dirtbag!"

She might as well have struck his heart still with that blow; skin on skin contact, no matter how brief, still does him in like nothing else. But his brain has caught up now and easily overrides the paralysed primal parts of his being.

"I sure am. Yet _you_ still come to _me_ for advice, so what does that say about you, huh?" he laughs and by now so does she. He has a point.

For a long moment Sakura just spears him with her gaze before she chooses to deliver her final blow. Practically smoothing up against his side she fishes the pillow from its exile beside him and settles it behind her head, as though he couldn't just feel her every curve against his body. His head is swimming from all these signals he has no way of interpreting and it's beginning to make him seasick.

With shaky finger he runs his hand through his hair and tugs the sheets further over his midsection, as if modesty was suddenly a thing for them now, before he looks back down at her. Sakura reads defeat but also amusement in his mahogany brown eyes and she can't help but avoid her gaze demurely now.

“So, what did you want to talk about now?”

* * *

The lock clicks and Iruka rests his scissors. Both dark pairs of eyes watch the door attentively as it swings open and reveals the rest of the crew intruding on their impromptu hair appointment. Up front as the spearhead of the group, Sakura comes to an abrupt stop as her eyes fall upon the scene before her.

“Good god, what is happening here,” she curses and instinctively shields Ino at her side from advancing further with her outstretched arm.

“I couldn’t listen to his constant _whining_ anymore,” Iruka complains with an exasperated roll of his eyes, before he adopts a higher pitch (which is ironic since Genma's voice is certainly deeper than his) and continues, obviously mocking his client before him. “ _‘Iruka my hair is getting too long’, ‘Iruka it’s too windy, my hair is getting in my face’, ‘Iruka do you have a hair tie for me?’_ I was over it!”

Offended Genma shoves up the bowl to glower at his hairdresser, “First of all, I don’t whine. Ever. Second of all, that is not what I sound like. _At all!_ ”

“Yeah, no, you’re worse,” the guitarist snaps back and Yamato can't help but snort as he closes the door dutifully behind himself.

With at least somewhat of an explanation to the scene they walked into, the others file into the room around the now quietly bickering pair. Nothing too out of the ordinary there and the initial shock morphs into relaxation quickly as they disperse across the room. Within seconds the back and forth between the two brunettes gains heat, but that too is nothing out of the ordinary. Only once the deeply unhelpful bowl hits the floor and Iruka begins to widely gesticulate with the scissors still in hand, which causes everybody to lean instinctively into the direction opposite of him, is it, that Ino and Sakura decide they've seen enough.

“Oh, move out of the way! I can’t watch this,” the blonde barks callously and roughly snatches the scissors off Iruka, like a teacher confiscating contraband from a student. With delicate yet strong hands she shoves him aside as Sakura steps beside her, suspiciously silent, moving to Genma’s other side to scowl at the already cut hair. Her brows furrow too deeply for his comfort as she examines a strand between her fingers closely. It's cut too short and at a wrong angle for the direction it's going but Sakura is far more distracted by how _soft_ it is. What conditioner does he use? Will it feel like silk if she sinks her fingers into his roots again? The last time she did she was too drunk, too devious, and focussed far more on the hitch in his breath and the tensing of his shoulders than on how wonderfully smooth his locks are. A pity.

His breath hitches again but Sakura doesn't notice. Maybe she doesn't hear, after all she isn't pressed against his back this time. Instead she's twirling a strand between two fingers so close to his face he can hardly focus his eyes on it, so instead he looks up at her with tentative eyes and one brow arched. If she wasn't sporting such a sour expression Genma would be positively bewitched by Sakura’s fingers and emerald greens. The way it is now though, with Iruka still grumbling as he falls into the couch, he swallows, “So, how is it?”

Grateful to be on the sidelines for once instead of in the middle of the mess, Kakashi is snickering to himself as he beelines over to the couch where Iruka is pouting. Right behind him is Yamato, he however wears a much more curious expression as he rounds Genma and leans to the bar of the kitchenette behind them. His face falls quickly once he steps behind the drummer, “Geez, how drunk is Iruka?”

"Not _that_ drunk," Genma swallows but his voice shakes nervously anyway. “ _Why?_ ”

The accusation of Iruka being drunk was just a shot in the dark to tease, but with that admission things make a lot more sense. Nevertheless, the bassist has to bite back a laugh and schools his voice and features into a neutral tone.

“Because there’s like a literal step at the back here,” Yamato points out matter of factly and crosses his arms. The grin on his face can't be hidden though, but at least only Kakashi and Ino see from their point of view. The latter of the two shoots him a grim glare. _Don't be mean to him. That's my job._

From his spot on the corner of the couch Kakashi leans over the armrest to take a look at where Yamato is loosely pointing out to him and he too grimaces and clicks his tongue, “Oh, that doesn’t look good, Genma.”

“ _Iruka,_ ” the drummer growls and Sakura's hand falls away from the mangled locks she was inspecting all around his head. Even if agitated, the sound sets off a wave of goosebumps all across her body and she barely suppresses the shiver rolling down her spine like a water droplet. She can’t have her hands on him when he does this to her.

“I cut my own hair all the time, what’s your deal?” Iruka defends venomously, leaning rigidly against the cushions of the couch.

Genma groans, “Yeah, that’s why it looks like that.”

This is what gets the guitarist back to his feet. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Even without scissors, this situation is loaded enough that Sakura feels the need to step in and physically wedges herself past Ino and in between the two men. A fist fight is the last thing they could use right now.

“Alright alright, both of you, _stop!_ We can fix this. Ino fixed my hair when I cut it off drunk that one time for a dare, so–”

Both Yamato and Kakashi scowl, and her husband interrupts bluntly, “When was that that?”

Sakura’s lids flutter shut for a moment, deeply annoyed by his interjection, as she turns to her love slouched on the couch with a dismissive hand wave. “Not the point. Anyway,” with that she twists back to Genma and slaps her hand optimistically on Ino’s bare shoulder blade, “since I didn’t strangle her afterward, I have faith that we’ll fix this.”

The slap hit hard and Ino almost elbows Sakura between the ribs for that piss poor vote of confidence if she didn’t catch Genma’s hopeful gaze. The poor idiot, he walked wide eyed into his demise. _Iruka really mangled that._

Sakura in the meantime has closed the meager distance between herself and Genma and is now running a light hand through his hair, trying to see if it makes any difference if it falls differently. It does not, and for his sake she tries not to grimace. The twitch in her cheeks is a dead giveaway nonetheless though and Genma doesn’t know how to feel.

Her hands in his hair feel divine, so much more tender than the last time when she did this, it almost makes him think he’s got a chance at still looking okay. But her face tells an entirely different story. He can’t tell which of either feeling flips his stomach in all directions of the wind. Gingerly she tips his chin this way and that and observes with more and more concern how unintended layers appear and new lengths slip away. “We’ll fix this,” Sakura murmurs, still tilting his head as she pleases, unable to peel her fingertips from him wherever she can touch him. After all he lets her, gladly. “...somehow.”

It’s like a long breath is held in the entire room until Sakura lets go of Genma’s chin and everybody exhales. Then things move fast. The girls plot and with the blunt kitchen scissors and a pair of tiny nail scissors they get to work.

Once more that night Iruka falls into the soft fabric of the couch, defeated and offended. Cradling a beer moodily, he glances over to Kakashi at his side and the front man is on edge immediately. The feeling doesn’t ease when his friend arches a brow at him.

“What,” he inquires awkwardly when Iruka’s stare becomes unbearable.

“You could use a trim too, you know.”

“Alright, you sit over there,” Kakashi shoots back quickly and points to the other couch as he scoots further to Yamato sat at the kitchen counter, “Do _not_ touch my hair, Umino.”

* * *

The afternoon sun beats down with its heatless November stare on the barren little area of the rest stop they’ve found themselves on. The gas station as the main attraction lays empty and rusty behind them, waiting for customers that aren’t looking to just smoke or take a quick bathroom break like them.

Yamato is leaned forward in the driver’s seat fiddling with the croaking radio as Kakashi walks small circles outside the car smoking. The bassist forbid it in the rental car with no room for argument, so Kakashi is sentenced to freeze in exile in exchange for nicotine. At least they left the window open. Not that his wife has any sympathy for him or his addiction as she hangs out in the middle of the backseat, not feeling the need to participate in the sparse conversation between the two men. Her ears are still ringing from the concert two nights before.

When the navigation system gives a pitiful beep in between her thoughts, it seems that Yamato has achieved a goal of his and she smiles when he half turns around to her. His eyes stay glued to the small screen however with a faint line appearing between his brows, when he asks her, “Hey Sakura, can you let Ino know that we’re going to pick them up in about 20 minutes?”

“Sure,” she smiles and fishes her purse from the still empty seat beside her. After a couple minutes of rummaging through the teeny tiny thing, she can’t help but muffle a curse under her breath. “Ah, I think I left my phone at the hotel.”

“I don’t have Ino’s number,” he responds a little bleakly but shifts immediately in his seat to retrieve his phone from his back pocket, “Here. Take my phone and just call Genma.”

Choosing to re-enter the conversation, Kakashi leans down beside the open window and the grin he throws Yamato over his sunglasses can’t mean anything good.

“Why don’t you call Genma?” He prods and his canines blink in the undisturbed sunlight.

But Yamato doesn’t even grace him with a glance, refusing to engage this dumbass as he hands Sakura the phone with a thin smile, “I just don’t want to talk to him right now.”

This is not the first time Sakura bears witness to this kind of teasing between the two, but she has learned from those times and knows not to inquire about the undertone. Thusly she accepts the phone silently. With a twitch of her brow and a last attentive glance between the two she unlocks it.

Outside, Kakashi laughs. “Why not? Is it because the sharpie won’t come off your ass?”

“I said, _I don’t want to talk him right now_ ,” Yamato bites back tersely and Sakura schools her features carefully as she scrolls through his contacts.

Mercifully Kakashi grins from ear to ear but also leaves it at that, _for now_ , and turns in a small circle outside, flicking off ash as Yamato resumes fiddling with the screen of the radio now that the navigation is fixed. Kakashi’s remark still took effect though because his large hand bears down on the dashboard right above the radio’s buttons a couple times.

Sakura almost doesn’t dare speak up as she doesn’t want to get tangled up in this altercation, but she clears her throat anyway, “Uh, Yamato? I can’t find Genma’s contact in here for some reason. It’s not under his first or last name.”

This time, mercy has run out though and Kakashi grins wide as the Cheshire cat then, when he fully leans into the open window before the phone’s owner has a chance to respond, “That’s because Genma is saved as _‘General Slut_ ’ in his phone.”

“He’s _what?_ ” Sakura howls, laughter breaking free from her like water bursting a dam.

Yamato grits his teeth but his senior just keeps going, “One of the many _sweet_ drunk decisions Tenzo _hasn’t_ gotten lasered away.”

His words conjure images in her mind immediately and before long Sakura is practically losing it. Delighted by his wife’s laugh and Yamato’s sour expression, Kakashi opens his mouth to elaborate further but he doesn’t get the chance.

A click, and then the mechanical whirring of the passenger side’s window rolling up is the only sound next to Sakura’s howling laughter in the backseat.

With a deep silent breath Yamato stays cool as he catches her eye with a thin smile, “Sakura, please just call Genma.”

Obediently and a little guiltily she nods to his request and _really_ makes an effort to keep it together, but tears are rolling down her cheeks and she thinks she tastes blood from biting her lip so hard. Her ribcage still shakes with poorly contained cackles, yet Sakura does as he says as she is wiping the fresh tears from her eyes, trying and failing to compose herself while it rings.

“What’s up, beeswax,” Genma answers but there is no answer. Or at least he can’t hear anything coherent over Sakura scream-sobbing with laughter on the other end of the line until Yamato picks up the phone slipping from her grasp.

“I hate you.”

It’s actually forty minutes later when the sleek door of the rental limousine is thrust open and the agitated chatter of the shoppers permeates their previously quiet space.

"Ugh, Genma what is that?" Yamato groans and does a double take when the drummer slides into the backseat beside Ino, squishing Sakura almost against the opposite window. But she doesn’t mind, her eyes are wide as the moon at Yamato’s exclamation.

"Oh my _god_ ," Sakura gasps and leans shamelessly across Ino's lap to examine Genma and his treasure, ignoring her best friend cursing at her belongings falling off her lap and her sunglasses slipping into her eyes.

Upon the commotion Kakashi looks over his shoulder at the back as well and immediately slumps into his own seat with a groan, "No! Come on, I thought you were over this!"

"It's just a choker, relax, man," Genma laughs and almost chokes when Sakura's thumb runs over his adam's apple.

"Seriously, Kakashi," Ino agrees as she bumps Sakura's hip in a silent command for them to switch seats since Sakura is practically sitting in her lap now anyway and the pinkette obliges happily. With a little bit of wiggling and a lot of cursing and slapped away errand hands, Sakura now sits in the middle to gain an even closer look at the soft leather. Wherever he got it, the person who made it paid very close attention to detail. This isn't some flimsy chain store accessory. In such close proximity to him, she’s practically encroaching on his seat too, the way the she did with Ino’s, but Sakura can't even pay attention to that. Her mind is practically clouded with the heady scent of his earthy, spicy cologne and only Ino gently pulling her back into her own seat tethers her to the earthly realm.

"I told him to get it," the blonde starts again, taking a sip of her already very liquidy milkshake that she defended from spilling, as she fiddles with her sunglasses, "Besides, he said he used to wear one all the time anyway."

"You did?" Sakura gasps again and Genma can't help but laugh. Her obvious delight is so charming it makes his head spin. "Where did you get it? This one looks so nice. I want one too!"

"Oh, hell no, Sakura, you have–" Kakashi interjects, but he cuts himself off and shakes his head, "Genma, seriously, aren't you too old for these?"

"Never. Can't you see how hot they make me?" He grins and turns to Sakura and Ino, both of who are leaned back into their seats now with their eyes yet still on him. Since sharing is caring, it's Sakura's cheeks that hollow around the straw of the semi melted milkshake now as the girls both hum affirmatively to his statement. Kakashi is floored and Genma’s grin is disgustingly smug.

"See? Completely under my spell."

Wise and foreseeing, Kakashi snorts just in time before Genma's howl of pain fills the car, as two feminine fists make immediate sharp contact with his bicep and his thigh.

"I see. _Marvellous_ spell there, General," Yamato deadpans as he pulls down his shades and the car back into the road.

* * *

The months stretch and every so often Genma still lies awake at night. More often than not insomnia gnaws at him like a hungry dog if he’s spent a significant amount of time with Sakura that day. On tour now, the dog is his constant companion. His thoughts race and spin and each time he chokes down the clump of nausea nestling beneath his adam’s apple with the same thought: _Even if you loved her less, it wouldn’t make a difference. Enjoy what you can get, Shiranui._


	6. brute force and bare hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well well well well well
> 
> this chapter took me a whole lot further than i originally anticipated but honestly i can’t complain, y’know? and i have a good feeling you guys won’t either uwu
> 
> enjoy <3

The fridge door falls shut as easily as he pops the bottle cap off with Kakashi’s lighter. Technically he knows exactly where the bottle opener is, but Kakashi warned him not to make a ruckus in the drawers as Sakura is asleep. That’s also why they’re freezing their asses off outside on the patio instead of sitting comfortably in the living room. None of the guys wants to incite Sakura’s rage, lest of all him. He can’t blame her for wanting a good night’s sleep or just a moment of solitude. The guys can be a lot at times, and now that he is in the quiet of the kitchen Genma can’t deny himself just a moment alone to savour his first sip either. It would be peaceful if he didn’t choke on it immediately when the lady of the house herself rounds the corner in a cut off t-shirt, and something that can barely be called a thong, stretching a little sleepily as if she didn't see him there at all. His eye is drawn immediately to her stomach and the ruffled stretch of fabric beneath it as he coughs violently and practically spills his whole mouthful on his jeans.

“Christ Sakura, would it kill you to wear some clothes?”

“I _am_ wearing clothes. I could just as well walk around naked,” she snarks back moodily and opens the fridge, adding insult to injury. “It's my house, after all.”

Even if she is technically correct, it’s kind of an asshole move and he glares at her over his beer, but she only laughs as she bends down to the door compartment, practically presenting her ass to him. This is divine punishment of an especially heinous kind and Genma averts his eyes to the floor in an effort to calm himself and the lust flaring viciously inside him. Ignorant to his suffering, she grabs her own beer and closes the fridge with gusto. He hopes for her to just take her bottle and leave, but Sakura is not so merciful. Instead of vanishing to where she came from, the vixen stalks over to him to grab the lighter from the counter next to him and his breath grows shallow as there’s barely a hand width between them now. In a futile attempt to put some space between them, Genma sinks further into the corner, leaning on one hand while he white knuckles the counter’s edge.

The pop of the bottle cap makes him tense as she opens the beer and he can’t help but furrow his brows when she doesn’t move away. Instead she practically corners him in the tight space, cocking her hip so that they almost touch. The ruffled fabric of her panty grazes his jeans at just a light breath. Warily he glances down at her and can’t help his outrage when she just crosses her arms and grins up at him as if this was perfectly fine. He sets his jaw and returns her stare, serious and with a scowl.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting myself a beer,” she shrugs and takes a demonstrative sip. It’s playing dumb on a level only her husband could beat her at. Genma averts his gaze and shifts his weight, absentmindedly noticing that the numbers on their microwave display are all sideways. Come to think of it, the time on the oven’s clock looks funny too, blinking away with a melty 45:89 AM. _Weird. They should get that fixed._

Sakura draws his attention again when she clinks the butt of her bottle against his playfully, “Cheers.”

“Are you just gonna drink this here?”

She only grins and shrugs, looking up at him through her lashes, “Why not? Company seems good.”

This isn’t right and Genma swallows down his nausea while crossing his arms in front of his chest. Her eyes are drawn to it immediately, the way thick muscle cords under his skin and his shirt strains on his biceps are sure to grab anyone’s attention. She turns to face him with an overly concerned scowl though, “What’s the matter, Genma? You seem so tense all of a sudden.”

The act is laughable, and quite frankly _insulting_. He’s had enough when she puts a hand on his arm

“Sakura.” His voice is low and serious, yet she meets his eye with a faux innocent look and a mischievous quirk to her lip. It boils his blood. How dare she toy with him? “Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

With measured breaths he takes her hand still resting on his arm and moves it away gently to her side, trying his hardest to keep his calm as his eyes flutter shut briefly before he regards her again. “You know what.”

When she doesn’t give him an answer and instead bites her lip, he exhales deeply. His gaze almost softens but the strain in his voice and the set of his jaw betray how torturous this is for him, “You’re his wife. Aren’t you guys happy?”

“I’ve never been happier,” she chucks a million-watt smile at him and his heart aches in his chest. Her next words strike like bullets. “But I see the way you look at me.” His jaw tightens even further and panic spreads like ants in his chest when she smoothes up to him, her hands on his collar, “I can feel your eyes on me wherever we are.”

He stills and his breath freezes in his lungs, but Sakura’s eyes just narrow.

“Are you happy, Genma?” Her words are sweet, yet her voice is sharp. It digs into his skin like icicles. “Are you happy when I talk to you and I get all close to tell you a secret? Are you happy when I call you while I’m in the bathtub, all wet and hot? Are you happy undressing me with your eyes, but never getting to touch?” With each word her tone becomes less and less kind, not that it started out particularly generous to begin with, and Genma stares at her wide eyed and pained.

Has he been that obvious this entire time? Has she known all this time? Does she hate him now? Does Kakashi? His heart rate rockets, and he suddenly feels faint. Only Sakura’s nails digging into his chest ground him to the here and now.

“I’m his wife. I'm his. I’ve always been his,” she hisses and Genma’s heart bleeds when it rips shred for shred as she raises on her tiptoes. Her breath hits his ear hotly, but he feels cold and dizzy. “You’re a bad friend, Genma. To Kakashi. To me. It’s only about time that you—”

She does not get to finish her hiss as Genma startles awake with a gasp from his venomous nightmare. Slicked in anxious sweat, the drummer shoots up ramrod straight in his bed with his chest heaving heart rate through the roof.

It is the second one that week and it’s only Wednesday. This can’t go on, at this rate she will in fact be the death of him, he is sure of it.

_Something’s got to give._ _But what?_

* * *

The low hanging afternoon sun beats down relentlessly on the pathetic little beach strip beneath the hotel’s promenade. None of them had really planned for a day here and Genma is beginning to regret not bringing any sunscreen. The back of his neck already feels tight and if he wants to avoid a severe sunburn, he really should get his ass into gear.

It takes a considerable amount of effort, but he knows there is a drugstore right by the hotel and, _fuck_ he really should get some. _This is starting to hurt_. Sighing deeply, he gets up from his lazy dozing on the towel spread haphazardly between his friends and slips into his cargo shorts, patting down his pocket for his wallet before he calls into the group, “Does anybody need anything?”

“Conditioner,” Ino chimes, fast as a pistol as she scowls over her magazine at him and slides her sunglasses to the middle of her nose.

“Floss,” Yamato throws in from beneath his arm draped over his eyes as Iruka sits up on his elbows, looking quizzically at Kakashi first.

“Do you think they’ll have a charger for my razor?”

Ino opens her mouth to answer as Kakashi shrugs, but she doesn't get to make a sound before Genma groans and snaps at all of them, “I meant _right now_! What am I to you, a concierge? Jesus.”

Shaking his head, he picks up his shirt and his shoes as he turns, but Kakashi halts him, “Hey wait, could you actually get some pain killer for Sakura?” Sighing Genma turns back halfway and he doesn't like the apologetic little grin Kakashi gives him one bit. “And could you maybe bring them to her? She just texted that she probably isn’t catching up, her headache is killing her.”

Genma would rather not as he swallows but eventually nods and shrugs, ignoring Ino’s pointed stare out of the corner of her eye. _The fuck is her problem anyway?_ Ino needs to mind her own fucking business.

“Sure, I’ll get them to her.”

He takes a handful of steps toward the concrete of the road before he turns with a groan back to his friends.

“What kind of conditioner?”

“What kind do you use?”

* * *

The suite is dark and quiet with all the curtains in the living room shut. It really must have sucker punched her out if she isn’t even waiting for him in the living room. Kakashi said he’d text her a heads up and Genma is about to call out her name, heading slowly down the hall, but stills when sound reaches his ear. A soft low moan and a hitching of breath. _Is she that miserable, the pain that bad? Oh, shit is it maybe a migraine and she is throwing up?_

The bathroom is right adjacent to the bedroom and Genma is gripped by worry that she might need help or at least someone to rub her back. He picks up his pace once more, but again stops dead in his tracks when he comes within sight of the door to her bedroom standing cracked a fair amount. What he sees beyond the sliver of light is that Sakura is certainly _not_ in the bathroom. Nor in pain.

Genma is practically showered with goosebumps when a choked little sigh comes from inside the room, followed by a breathy, heartfelt “ _fuck_ ”. His eyes squeeze shut tight and his molars grind on his toothpick.

Stiff as a pillar of salt he stands rooted to the spot while he white knuckles the paper bag with the medication in it, unable to move in either direction. He’s certainly not going forward but can’t tear himself away either. The position he stopped in is uncomfortable and awkward, but Genma’s entire body refuses to move –– paralysed by each sigh tumbling off Sakura’s lips.

It feels like an eternity but may have only been seconds at best when he slowly opens his eyes again and is struck still by the sight. The headboard of the bed and a good half of it can be easily seen through the crack in the door and Sakura lies diagonally across the king size mattress, head and shoulders propped up gently by the heap of plush hotel pillows. Yet it is her face that draws his eye at once and he can feel hot shame curse through his system at the immediate heat pooling in his lower belly at her sight. The breath is knocked straight from his lungs at her expression; flushed and heated and scrunched so paradisaically in concentration. It is perfectly clear now that she took matters of relieving her headache into her own hands.

Quite literally that is. Genma can’t help but let his eye wander. Down from the mess of her hair spread and mussed by the cushions like a halo, over the way she gnaws on her bottom lip to keep from moaning, down along her lithe body. The slight sunburn on her chest and the tan lines peeking out cheekily among the straps of her fluttery baby doll dress are beguiling; he is sure he could taste the sun on her skin. The low cut of the dress looks inviting, yet he is distracted by the way her hardened buds strain clearly against the fabric and are hardly soothed by her left thumb ghosting circles over one of them. Her gentle touch on her breast alone makes the drummer’s mouth run dry at the sight, noting absently that her hand trembles lightly, before his gaze slips further.

From her smoothly tanned shoulder along her gently bent elbow and down to her rapidly moving wrist as her hand disappears from his sight between her smooth, taught thighs. It’s almost laughable that the angle censors the act he’s witnessing so chastely, as if the fact that he _is_ watching at all wasn't perverted and wrong enough in itself.

Because that’s exactly what it is: wrong. He’s invading her privacy. She has not consented to him watching her. He needs to stop at once. She could open her eyes at any second and meet his eye point blank, and then he would be doomed. Not just him, but the whole band. She would hate him, Genma is sure of it. The dreams may not always resemble reality, but they all have this in common and that must mean something, right?

With a shuddery, silent inhale he steels himself, ready to wrangle his body into submission and turn around but he never gets to that. Sakura shatters his resolve in an instant when a particularly breathy gasp bursts past her parted lips. Genma feels dizzy and hypnotised as if she was a siren and every noise and sound stemming from her body casts a spell on him. One he is slave to and cannot break until she reaches release.

The only silver lining is, that if he reads her correctly, she is not all too far from it. Her breaths come quick, more akin to pants really, and her moans grow fiercer as well, albeit choppy. _Gods_ , how he wishes it was him in that moment, that draws those sounds from her rather than her own fingertips. He would give _anything_ to make her feel this good.

Even if he does not want to think of it, Genma can’t help but shift his weight silently as his own arousal is straining painfully against the unyielding material of his cargo shorts. Watching her is one thing, wretched and absolutely despicable enough, but if he touched himself to it? That’s a truly wretched thing. A death sentence on all accounts. Morale, friendship, consent. Not even he himself would want to associate with him, if he sunk so low. Instead he welcomes the ache and grinds his jaw; the pain of his belt buckle provides the castigation he very obviously needs.

As her arm’s movement grow more and more frantic, his eyes grow dark and hazy. Through the actually quite generous crack of the door, he can see her thighs strain and begin to spasm in tandem with her spine arching gently off the bed. She is close, her climb is near complete and Genma almost sighs in relief himself. Every choked moan and bitten off breath stabs his heart and stokes the fire in his loins to a raging inferno, only soothing his paranoid brain that at least it is soon over. He will soon be released and allowed to flee the crime scene like a good criminal.

If only Sakura didn’t decide his fate as she opens her eyes right then when her head lolls to her side. His blood freezes in his veins in an instant when smouldering pine green eyes meet his. Instead of her eyes growing wide and her hands seizing all action in panic, Sakura doesn’t even flinch.

No, the opposite in fact. She holds his gaze steadily through her erratic breaths, and if he wasn’t deaf from the blood rushing in his ears, he might even hear her sob his name as her orgasm overwhelms her. Her hips spasm uncontrolled and her lashes flutter as she cants desperately into her own touch, chasing the fleeting point of bliss just shy of overstimulation.

Genma feels like the world is falling apart around him, his mind numb and blue screening in utter terror. The seconds that it takes for her to come down from her high feel like eons to him and he can’t decide if he wants the ground to swallow him up or if it wouldn’t be fairer to her to strangle him with her own bare hands. What will happen now?

She is not concerned with his anguish. Sakura is on the entire opposite end of the spectrum, too blissed out to even formulate a half sentence thought in her head, much less anger. Not that she ever was angry in the first place. He may think himself to be silent and possess ninja like grace, but reality is far from it. As soon as he unlocked the front door, she had heard him and every single step he took toward the place he stands in rooted now.

Admittedly, Sakura was aware that voyeurism is one of her more prominent kinks and she has had her moments. Even with Genma, like the one time almost a year ago on their vacation. But that was really more of a fantasy, a projected wish of hers that Kakashi made come true like a good husband. She’d dreamed of it countless more times since, in every which way she could think of. Yet nothing compared to this — him _actually_ watching her please herself. And judging by the hazy, downright starved way he regards her it wasn’t one sided at all. This was just as good for him as it was for her.

The silence settles thick in the room entirely permeated by the scent of her arousal and it’s almost funny to her. So funny even that Sakura cuts the tension with a breathless laugh.

“Are you just gonna stand there now? Get in here, you pervert,” she snickers affectionately before tugging the edge of her dress down to where she can still feel herself pulse and flutter with the aftershocks of her orgasm. The comforter beneath her is sticky with her slickness but she doesn’t mind; bless hotel laundry services.

Her words don’t register straight away for him and Genma thinks he must be dreaming when their meaning elbows itself through the fog of lust and fear in his brain. It’s a bizarre request to him and he thinks her crazy for it yet follows her command regardless. What else would there be to do after all? It’s not like he can slink away into the shadows _now_.

On a deep exhale he wills his stiff legs to move and pushes the previously cracked door open enough to squeeze into the room. He doesn’t even make it fully through the doorway though, before his apology bursts from his chest like fireworks in July, “Sakura, I am so, _so_ sorry. I can’t even begin to—”

But she cuts him off with an irritated wave of her hand and shushes him quickly.

“Shut up, you big idiot. Just come here. Sit,” she commands and pats the free spot beside her on the bed. His eyes almost bulge out of his head and this time he doesn’t answer so easily to her wish. Instead he stands forlorn and awkward by the door, caught stiff in motion, still white knuckling the paper bag. His mind is all over the place, flooded and overloaded with all sorts of thoughts ranging from ‘ _Why is she not punching me through the next wall?’_ and ‘ _Did she cum exactly when she saw me?’._ Not to mention every worry known to man bombarding him about whether or not she will tell Kakashi, what he will do about it and what consequences this will have. It makes his head spin and gall rise in his throat, as he pales visibly.

Sakura can practically see his thoughts falling over themselves behind his eyes and she pats the bed again gently. Still mellow and soft in her afterglow her mouth twists into a reassuring grin, “Genma, relax. I’m not going to tell anyone about this, just sit down. Please.”

_Oh, thank god. She’s not gonna— Wait, what?_

Apprehensively Genma sits down on the edge of the bed beside her, still a little rigid as he doesn’t allow himself to relax in such close proximity to her. Not meeting her gaze, he scowls, entirely unsure what to make of the entire situation. With his thoughts racing along his frazzled nerves he shifts his toothpick from one side to the other before at last he sighs.

“Sakura,” he starts again, and she almost shushes him once more, she only stops when his eyes rise to meet hers. They’re so sincere it almost makes her wheeze. “I’m really sorry, I should have never violated your privacy like this.”

Even with her head feeling like lead she shakes it vigorously at his words and Genma stills when she puts her hand over top of his on the comforter. He can’t help but notice how her fingers are still slightly sticky.

“No, no, no, you didn’t. I heard you when you opened the front door already,” she admits with a coy blush. “I really should have said something, but... I was just _so_ close, y’know? And, uhm, you didn't seem to mind… I— I have to admit, I kind of have a thing for being watched. So, I guess we both got something out of it, huh?”

The world might spin backwards right in that moment and Genma wouldn’t even notice. _What the hell is happening?_

“Huh,” he huffs, stumped and with his head empty. From overload to complete static in a matter of seconds. “I guess so.”

Not that this was planned in any shape or form, but Sakura has a feeling that the situation is treading along a thin line with the potential to go sour faster than she can react. It scares her a little. She wants nothing more than to keep that from happening; if this escalates in any direction, she would prefer it to end with another orgasm rather than a broken heart on either end.

“So, what did you come up here for anyway?” She quips lightly in an attempt to divert his thoughts and juts her chin toward the paper bag in his other hand, desperate to steer the conversation into shallower waters. “What’s that?”

Following her motion, he looks down to his hand with a scowl, only remembering then really how he got himself into this mess. _Right. That_.

_Kakashi didn’t text her, that dick._

“Painkillers,” he explains and places the bag at last in the space between them. “For your headache.”

She nods, biting her lip to avoid telling him that there is no need anymore, but Genma isn’t stupid. An amused grin finally breaks his stiff posture as he twirls his toothpick with his tongue and meets her gaze teasingly, “But I guess you already took care of that.”

“I guess I did,” she grins right back, chuckling soft and low in her throat. “No better remedy than an orgasm.”

The situation is so surreal, so utterly alien to him, that he simply cannot hold back a laugh when she quirks her brow at him. Relief floods her lungs like a deep breath of air when she joins him in it.

Far more at ease now, albeit still confused over the entire thing, Genma drops backward onto the bed to his elbows with a sigh, “Couldn't you at least close the door?”

“Why? I didn’t think anybody was gonna walk in on me!” Sakura protests and nudges his shoulder with her thigh, drawing the softest little squelching sound from where she is still wet and bare. With eyes like a hawk she sees exactly how his breath hitches, but he overplays it with a cough.

“Exhibitionist,” he snarks instead and nudges her right back. Sakura laughs.

“Come on, with how much you made that girl scream last night, you were practically expecting applause when you came down to breakfast this morning,” she scoffs and now it’s his turn to laugh. This is one of those things he loves. About her. About them. No matter how awkward a situation is, how completely hopeless he deems it, she always pulls him right back out. She comforts him without any effort at all. In a different life he’d think she might just return his feelings on the off chance. But not in this one. Here it is all play and Sakura is just being a good friend.

Her heart swells to see him so relaxed again. Free of this mortal fear she saw in his eyes when she first spied him in the corner of her eye. His ease makes her feel bold and she cocks a brow, nudging him again, “So, how many times did she cum? You kept everyone up all night, after all. Must’ve been worth it.”

Genma doesn’t answer, caught somewhere between embarrassment and a hint of pride he diverts his eyes down to his lap but smirks as he holds up four fingers sheepishly.

Sakura clicks her tongue and rumbles mockingly, “Aren’t you generous, Shiranui.”

The look he sends her then hits her like a bolt of lightning, straight through her navel down to her core. Her left hand, hidden from his sight, curls into the sheets, when he doubles down with a dirty grin, “What can I say? I like to please.”

_Fuck,_ he has no right to make her this wet so soon after she just came.

It was meant to be lighthearted, a joke to draw another pearly laugh from her, and Genma didn’t anticipate to miss the mark so severely with that one. Instead of laughter, he is met with a dark gaze and only the hint of a grin curling her lip impishly.

“Is that so?” Her voice is quiet, and the question sounds far more honest than teasing to his ear. It stirs a heat in his gut that instantly spikes lower and sweat beads up at the small of his back almost instantly.

More and more often sex comes up as a topic between the two of them lately, and even if it rips him apart thread for thread every time, he does not take offence to it. They’re friends and he talks with her the same way he would with any of the guys. As he does so often recently, Genma finds himself between a rock and a hard place with his options now. Just like every other time he’s at a fork in the road. There’s the valiant option, the _right_ one that doesn’t step on anyone’s toes, to back out and steer the conversation elsewhere. To safer, more PG-13 topics. But then there is the selfish option, the one that comes naturally to him as he finds it so much easier to act on, and that is to be candid with her. In almost a year there hasn’t been a single time she objected to his choice, either of which that is.

Now, aside from the handful of times he’s had a conversation with her while she was soaking in a bath, this is the most intimate they’ve gotten. _Can’t really get worse than that, can it?_

He makes his choice and Sakura has to tamper down her desire with an iron grip as he meets her eye. The casual, almost playful, grin he throws her fans the residual embers in her belly to bright flame.

“You know how they say, that a woman is the most beautiful when she laughs? I call bullshit on that,” he begins, and her thighs squeeze ever so subtly together in response to his calm tone. “No woman is more beautiful at any point in her life than when she orgasms.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he hums. Genma would lie if he said he doesn’t realise this is doing something to her. Something _good_. Lying so close to her hip, propped up on his elbows like that, her spiking scent wraps itself around him easily. It’s heady and intoxicating to him, and maybe he can blame it on that later on, if he pushes this too far. Not that he plans to. For now, this is easily enough, and he indulges more than he should already. Himself as much as her. “The way your cheeks flush, how your lashes flutter, that concentrated little furrow of your brow, those soft little sounds you girls make… It all just comes together to make the most beautiful and erotic picture I can think of.”

Sakura hangs on his every word like it is water and she is dying of thirst. It’s involuntary, she is slave to his voice and wouldn’t have it any other way. Distractedly she drags her bottom lip between her teeth when he licks his, and she can see how his tongue plays with the edge of the toothpick. It makes her wonder just what else he can do with that tongue when he concludes, “So, yeah. I _really_ like to please. Because it pleases _me_.”

It’s logical really, Sakura can admit that. Smart even. Yet no matter how clever his reasoning is, it doesn’t eradicate the fact that is also _incredibly_ arousing to her, and Sakura has to take a deep breath before she can say anything in answer. Her eyes are again that shade of pine green that spells pure heat to him, and Genma doesn’t give a fuck right now about what that implies or in what kind of trouble it puts him as long as she doesn’t look away.

Shifting from her back gingerly onto her side, Sakura’s breath is shallow as she draws her upper knee toward him and props her hand up on her upturned palm.

It takes a moment for her to speak and her tongue darts out to wet her bottom lip, before eventually she whispers, “Do you think I’m pretty when I cum, Genma?”

Her tone is honest, innocent really, weren’t it for the topic at hand. Genma’s adam’s apple bobs swiftly in his throat when he swallows hard.

It’s vanity on her part really; if he wasn’t completely caught up in the moment, the realisation that she has caught onto his affection for her would hit him harder, and he’d likely feel ashamed about it too. Maybe resent her a little even for using him so blatantly to stroke her ego. But as it is right now, and perhaps never again after that, he can’t hate her. Can’t feel averse to her in any way. All he yearns for is to _please_ her.

When he stays silent for too long, Sakura nudges his forearm with her knee and hushes, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell Kakashi about this. Any of this. It stays between us. This is _between you and me_.”

Those four words are all he needs to hear; they’re like the password to the vault he locks all his feelings for her in.

Licking his lips, Genma inhales deeply and her breath catches in her throat at how deep and raspy his voice sounds when he responds without much decorum, “Sakura, you are dizzyingly gorgeous when you cum.”

_Silence_. Then the shifting of fabric against fabric as Sakura moves.

It takes all of her otherworldly discipline and willpower to not crawl outright into his lap right then, yet she manages. He watches her with bated breath, his mind blank and unable to predict what is about to happen when she rises up onto her knees and leans over him.

Her left hand supports her beside his right wrist, and he watches hypnotised how she snags the toothpick hanging uselessly from between his lips. His heartbeat skyrockets as she moves her face so close to his he can feel her soft, warm breath on his skin. It smells of mint and her perfume cloaks him in iris and vetiver.

“Thank you for getting me the meds.” It’s no more than murmured preamble as the words don’t even have time to register properly before she presses a soft, open mouthed kiss to the corner of his lips that the toothpick was nestled in previously.

Sakura has absolutely zero idea what she is doing. None of this was ever planned and she had a deal with Kakashi to talk to him before she made any move, but _god_ — if she lets this slip, who's to say she’ll ever have such an opportunity again? This idiot isn’t getting any of her gentle hints, maybe it _is_ time for some brute force like this.

She has no time to react however, there’s no second for her to contemplate her next move, before all of a sudden, she feels Genma shift beneath her. In a heartbeat he’s cupped her face with his left hand, his rough fingertips brushing into her roots behind her ear as his thumb strokes lightly over her cheek and jaw. A near whimper threatens to escape her throat and she can feel his heavy breath on her lips. _Is he— ?_

His lips part gently, and Sakura’s eyes flutter shut in trembly anticipation when she thinks she can feel them brush hers, but the sensation of his mouth on hers never comes. There is no devouring kiss that follows, because their little bubble shatters with the beeping sound of the front door’s lock opening.

She can hardly catch her balance as he slips away from her in a shadow swift flight, and Sakura is left in her room. Alone and frustrated to the point of tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that uwu was 110% ironic, i know at least one of you wants to beat my ass rn
> 
> tell me about that! i love your rage, come yell at me in the comments or on [tumblr!](https://pahdme.tumblr.com)
> 
> love you guys, thank you so much for reading and always being so vocal with me, it really really really means a lot to me and helps me so much to not lose motivation. i’m slow with updating but i just hate putting out subpar work, thank you for patience and your love <3


	7. show and tell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not... dead?
> 
> crazy! honestly I could tell you all the reasons why writing hasn’t been working for me lately but then again it’s 2020. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> I hope you guys have been staying safe and healthy! I got good news for what’s the harm and bad news. The bad news is, I’m stuck at 1.3k words of procrastination with the next chapter, but the good news is, chapter 9 is done and edited already LMAO
> 
> I’ve been writing as it came this month and I figured I could upload this before Christmas as a holiday treat <3 I’m also working on bsas and rotten work (which has gotten SO POPULAR IM SO SURPRISED THANK U) so here’s to hoping 2021 is a creative year!
> 
> thanks for your continuous support and don’t throw rotten tomatoes at me for lowkey turning this into a song fic. My hyperfixation for this fic and this chapter specifically ruined my Spotify wrapped. I _couldn’t_ back out after that!
> 
> ANYWAY, onto the chapter! take a shot every time you read country :-)

Her skin is hot, too hot and tight, but Sakura feels cold and crestfallen when the bedroom door opens. Instead of smouldering hickory eyes, she is met with the mild smile of her husband, shining down on her like the headlights of a semi about to hit her.

She wants to scream. At the top of her lungs preferably.

They had been _so_ close. _She_ had been so close to getting through to him, and now? It feels broken and fucked up. It is kind of in the open, but then again not at all. What if she ruined it?

That thought alone makes the tears stinging her eyes threaten to roll down her flushed cheeks as she tilts her face up to Kakashi.

His smile falters as soon as he spies the sad glisten of her eyes and the furrow of her brow. Immediately his own twitches inward in concern. “What’s wrong?”

She doesn’t answer, the heartache falls off her like a shield. Blind with rage, she reaches for the myriad of pillows behind and beside her and _fires_. Kakashi catches the first one, the second flies sharply past his head and the third thuds dully against his chest.

“ _I almost had him,_ ” Sakura snarls thickly around the clump in her throat and the wobbly sob resting on her bottom lip. Her teeth grit as she curls her fingers feistily into another cushion. “But _no_ , then _you,_ and the rest of this godforsaken circus trampled in like a horde of elephants and scared him away!”

It’s not hard for Kakashi to piece together quickly, that whatever little mission he had sent Genma on, failed like the launch of Apollo 13. At _his_ hands apparently. Not that he hadn’t tried to stall for as long as possible, but the rest of their pack had been driven by hunger. A force evidently more powerful than goodwill. Sensing a second explosion, as the metaphorical wreck of Sakura’s mood hits the ground, he crosses the distance to the bed in two long strides before she can fling the next pillow in her magazine at him.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he soothes hastily, “calm down. What’s the matter, what happened?” He’s got an idea, but seeing the state his wife is in, he’d prefer to know _exactly_ what he fucked up.

Sakura doesn’t answer right away. Her gaze has moved from glaring daggers at him and the direction of the living room with all of them in it, over to the cracked open window where the breeze is ruffling the linen curtains. The sliver she can see of the ocean cannot be much broader than the one Genma had seen of her. The tide outside rolls in the same sure way her orgasm had earlier.

Her eyes swim in the surf of unshed tears and she grinds her jaw to keep her lower lip from quivering. “He almost _kissed_ me,” she presses out between gritted teeth, and her chest feels hollow. Her sternum practically caves in with yearning for the opportunity that got away. “I felt his lips brush mine and then– then there was just that goddamn click of the lock and he _bolted_.”

Just like her, Kakashi is silent at first. His thoughts are racing but they’re no match for the pace of his emotions. First there is sympathy overwhelming him. He can taste her hurt on his tongue, it is so palpable and vivid to him that he doesn’t quite know what to do with it at first. Yet then comes also pity. A whole heartful of pity. For her, bust mostly for Genma. Because after being married so long to her, he doesn’t know anymore what it feels like to want to kiss her and be denied. Especially if it feels like it may have been your only chance. But in the pit of his stomach there’s another feeling bubbling up and he isn’t quite sure how to process it.

It’s surprise; but it tastes sour and coats his mouth in a bitter cotton. Surprise and almost, _just almost_ , jealousy—because that wasn’t the plan.

They had a deal. They agreed to check in with each other, to go over any bigger moves—and a kiss is certainly a bigger move—but the more he turns the surprise over and watches her face, scrunched up in agony, he cannot be angry with her. The jealousy dissipates as fast as it came on; he knows in his heart that she couldn’t have had malicious intent. Even without any further details he _knows_ that she acted out of instinct. Hell, if he was in her shoes, he’d take charge the same way she did way back when. With him. And Kakashi was a lot less dense about the situation than his best friend currently is. _How could he fault her for this?_

“I’m sorry,” he says eventually and Sakura sniffles pitifully.

She drags the inside of her wrist mindlessly over her nose and swallows the clump of thorns in her throat as she faces her husband. Her green irises are almost milky with chagrin and her brows knit into a deep frown.

“We’re hurting him. _I’m_ hurting him,” she whispers quietly. The admission of guilt roughs up her insides and makes her feel like bleeding out from within. If this cuts her so deeply already, how must Genma feel then? The thought alone makes fresh tears well up in her and her voice grows thick. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this. I don’t want to hurt him, and I think I’ve pushed too far. Today. Last week. I–”

Even if she wouldn’t choke up then, Kakashi still cuts her off firmly, “ _Stop_. We talked about this, remember? We both agreed that it wasn’t going to be easy and now we’ve hit a bump in the road. That’s all.”

“A _bump in the road_? Kakashi, I think he thinks I want an affair! What if this goes sideways? Jesus, we wanted to be with him since last year already! How much longer are we supposed to stretch this? Do you want to wait until he leaves the band? What’s your fucking plan?”

The growing agitation in her voice grates on his nerves and while he does feel for the both of them, he can’t help but snort, almost derisively, as he crosses his arms and shrugs, “Well no one could predict he’d be this thick about it.”

This time it’s her turn to snort, but her tone is mirthless and bites. “Is he though?”

“Well, apparently,” Kakashi now huffs indignantly and Sakura sees red.

The casual dismissiveness of his tone sparks an anger in her that makes her head, chest and bones hurt. Growling in frustration she bares her teeth, “You don’t get it. You don’t _fucking get it_. It’s not just him who’s being tormented. _I’m_ hurting too at this point, you fucking asshole!”

The insult slips past her lips and gritted teeth so easily, so sharply, it makes the breath kind of freeze in his lungs. It’s not that she never uses choice words with him, but it is a first in relation to the topic. He knows that they are dancing on a tightrope here and the dynamic they are establishing—or rather _failing_ to establish—threatens to tip off kilter. Holding the balance requires utmost delicacy. The longer this seems to go on though, the more calloused they become in their treatment. Both with him and each other. With sensitivity on a decline, there is potential for more than just broken hearts and Kakashi feels sick to his stomach at the thought of what other consequences this might have.

Shaking off the initial knee-jerk reaction of aggression at her tone and choice of words, he schools his features and breathes. If he’s good at one thing, it’s keeping a cool head. Clearing the cloudiness of an argument on the horizon, he looks at his wife. Just looks at her, exactly the way she is right then and there; like an outsider. An onlooker gazing in through the window. Like a broken-hearted voyeur standing outside her door.

Sadness cloaks her, sitting forlorn and almost lost in the mess of sheets and scattered pillows surrounding her. Her hair is mussed, from what he does not know just yet and her lips and cheeks are ruddied with colour. The only giveaway to her hammering heart beat, besides her flared nostrils, is the way she’s picking restlessly at the thin, beaded bracelet encircling her ankle. To him it’s a dead giveaway to the extent of her anxiety and slowly he softens. The urge to comfort her trumps any arising fight.

“I’m sorry,” he relents quietly, when the silence grows too smothering. His arms uncross and he relaxes at her side before his thumb comes to rest on the back of her hand. Drawing soft circles against the rhythm of her fidgeting, like the antidote to her anxiety. “We’ll fix this, I promise.”

Ever the skeptical, Sakura's whisper tastes pessimistic and unconvinced, “How?”

Kakashi shrugs and goes for gold. With a toothy grin, exposing all his canines, he teases, “Guess we gotta get a little more aggressive now, huh? Or I suppose _I_ do. Gotta give that man a break from your torment.”

She wants to laugh. He does this for her, more than for him, and she knows it. Her husband’s smile is bright now, as it is so rarely. More often than not, it is reserved only for her. Yet it is _too_ bright. At least for right now. Too aloof and too careless to truly soothe her distress, but she lets him believe. Out of the three of them, one has to have faith in this, after all.

“I guess so,” she smiles—it’s thin and a little watery still, but he takes it.

The quiet filling in between them now is soft and powdery, like a sugar cloud wrapping them in saccharine silence. Her breath begins to even from its jagged rhythm and Kakashi dares to be bold.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?”

He’s almost shy when he asks. Sakura has shared the little moments she’s had with Genma with him before, but the bigger ones—the emotional ones—she’s kept to herself and so has Genma. _It’s between him and her_. They both said this, in one way or another.

Kakashi respects this. He wants to; he _needs_ to, but it’d be a lie to say he wasn’t dying to know at times. Would she divulge him this time? Share the pain _and_ the pleasure?

For a moment she regards him closely, seemingly weighing her options and their outcomes at equal measure, until something overtakes her features that Kakashi can’t say he’s seen often on her. It’s _shyness_.

Not coyness or any other playful, innocently deceptive variety— _true_ shyness. This is dear to her heart and her protectiveness is beguiling to him. Even more so when one corner of her mouth quirks up into a little simper. The flint strikes, and the dry tinder behind her eyes is set aflame by its spark. 

“No,” she flutes impishly. “But I can show you.”

  * ••



“You _cannot_ be serious.”

“They have a _spa_ , bonehead,” Ino scoffs and pushes her sunglasses to the top of her head. “Of course I’m serious.”

“Iruka has a point though. Country clubs kind of aren’t... our usual scene,” Yamato scowls at the blonde, still thoroughly unconvinced, and clears his throat.

The group, still standing like lost ducklings around the blonde, murmurs in unanimous agreement which only causes Ino’s blue eyes to roll back so far, there’s nothing but white visible beyond her fluttering lashes.

“I don’t give a fuck if they’re your ‘usual scene’, I’m the PR manager. I decide what’s your scene. _Besides_ ,” she hisses from behind a tense, icy smile, “Shikamaru said these rich old fucks are paying better than half the venues we’ve been to this year _combined,_ for only three nights of bullshit ambient music. And thanks to yours truly, we’re allowed to spend the weekend and enjoy the amenities completely free of charge. _All of it_ . So unless any of your next words are going to be _‘Thank you, Ino_ ’ I don’t want to fucking hear it.”

With wheat coloured tresses flying, she swings around to the band with her hands on her hips and a brow arched in challenge. None of the deer in headlights staring back at her dare say a thing, until Sakura takes off her sunglasses.

“When you say amenities, does this include massages _and_ drinks?”

In the bright morning sun, Ino’s grin is predatory, pearly and practically blindingly white.

“ _Anything you want, baby._ ”

  * ••



Yamato was right when he said this wasn’t their scene. And boy, should she have listened.

This fact becomes clearer and clearer the more of the morning the group spends bickering and fighting about their program. Turns out, trying to assemble songs that fit the ‘lounge music’ category between four members of a _rock_ band is surprisingly a lot harder than anticipated. They arrived the night prior and spent the day so far from the ass crack of dawn up until now, just shortly past seven, setting up their instruments and bitching about the songs each of them suggested–still nowhere even close to having an actual program together. If Ino didn’t demonstrate her spectacular act as sleeping beauty, shut away behind black out curtains in one of the rooms of the attached bed and breakfast, she’d have a migraine already.

It needs to be _mellow_. The PR manager had beaten the word into their heads so brutally it lost all meaning to them. Every song is and isn’t mellow to them the longer they keep arguing about it. Kakashi had lost it sometime after six am and declared a very much needed and far extended cigarette break, when Iruka suggested they play something of their current program for the third time.

In the hum of tuning instruments and the clattering of Genma assembling his drum set, Kakashi is lost deep in thought now with an unseeing stare directed out the window to the golf course. He’s quickly running through his mental catalogue of songs in their repertoire until an idea strikes him like Sakura’s pillows to his chest the other week. Chancing a glance at his drummer tightening a screw on a cymbal, he cocks his head at last and jerks his chin in a nod at Genma, “Hey, what about that song for the anniversary?”

Genma doesn’t look up from his task but his brows knit into a frown. “What about it?” He answers slowly, cautiously.

Soft pink draws his attention out of the corner of his eye and his gaze flits quickly between Sakura crossing the room, cradling a coffee, and her aloof husband, lounging on one of the unnecessarily comfortable chairs of the ballroom slash dining room. 

The song was technically meant to be a secret, but then again it is _their_ anniversary, as he has to painfully admit to himself, and Kakashi has always been an unpredictable ass. It’s his surprise to ruin after all. So who is Genma to step in?

“Well, country is pretty mellow,” the front singer shrugs and acknowledges his wife with a smile and eagle eyes aimed at her coffee cup.

“I never said it was going to be country,” Genma retorts hotly, almost a little offended.

Kakashi grins and presses on teasingly, “But it is country?”

Genma grinds his teeth and sighs, “Yeah, it is country.”

Sakura only catches the tail end of the conversation, but her curiosity is piqued immediately as she settles onto Kakashi's thigh and laughs, “What’s country?”

“The song for our anniversary. I asked Genma to put a little something together for me,” Kakashi smiles shamelessly and guides Sakura’s hand holding the cup to his own lips, to steal a sip from her coffee despite her prompt protests.

She slaps his shoulder with a small gasp of annoyance but can’t keep her laugh from lacing with her voice, “And you’re telling me that _now_? Our anniversary isn’t for another three months! You’re the worst at keeping secrets, seriously.”

When her husband only gives her an apologetic grin and kisses her cheek with a smudged little ‘sorry’, she waves him off dismissively. “We’ll talk about this later.” If she wasn’t sure that Kakashi had some ulterior motive involving Genma in this, she’d actually be mad that he pawned off a surprise for their anniversary to anyone, and even worse, _him_. Turning to Genma and guarding her coffee cup with her cupped hand, she frowns at the brunette, “Okay, surprise aside, why country though? That doesn’t sound like you _at_ _all_.”

As if a record scratch echoed through the room, everyone in the room grows silent before Genma laughs, thinking she’s joking. But Sakura’s frown doesn’t subside and now Genma’s own brows knit together in confusion as he lets his toothpick whip with a flick of his tongue. “What do you mean?”

Before she can answer, Yamato cuts in a little bewildered. His words are clearly directed at Kakashi though, who’s currently looping his arms around her waist and attempting another stealth attack at her cup. “You didn’t tell her?”

“Tell me what?” Sakura quips and her eyes narrow skeptically as her gaze flickers between Kakashi, Genma and Yamato.

Sensing the arising tension Iruka swoops in before Kakashi can even make a move to answer, while his wife’s stare burns a hole into his skull, “You do know how they met, right?”

“Yeah, in the military,” Sakura says slowly, pointedly arching a brow at her husband. “Or was that a lie?”

“No, no, no,” Kakashi supplies hastily when she begins to bristle even further in his lap. “I just left out a little detail.”

“What detail?” She pushes and everyone aside from Kakashi seems to find their shoes suddenly vastly more interesting than anything else in the room.

Kakashi flounders a little before he clears his throat, “I, uh– I didn’t actually meet him at initiation. I met Genma when he fell backward off a table belting out some anthem from the deep south in a bar on base. Back then he was fresh from the farm— _literally_ —and still had a full drawl and everything going on. You should’ve seen him. We joked for _years_ that the only thing he was missing was a set of spoons to play on.”

“Huckleberry Finn had nothing on him,” Yamato snorts more or less supportively but definitely affectionately. It really wasn’t that dramatic, but the memory is still fresh in his mind of what Genma was like when they first met so many years ago and old habits die hard. They teased him relentlessly then, there’s no reason for them not to do it now. But just like back then, the drummer shoots straight and fires back immediately, eyes narrowed at the bassist, “Hey when I met you, you had a full mullet going on. So, I’d be real quiet right now, if I were you.”

Yamato rolls his eyes at him in answer, but stays undeterred from the topic and shrugs at Sakura, “I’m just saying, when I met him he sounded like Forrest Gump.”

Off to her left Iruka shakes his head forcefully before he points his croissant at the drummer, “No, he still does. He just lost the accident. For the most part.”

“Do you want to talk about your closet full of purple blazers, Umino? Who did you think you were, Prince?”

“Okay, hold up, right there,” Sakura interjects the squabbling bunch, cutting their endless bickering short immediately. “Genma didn’t grow up in the city?” Sakura looks like they just told her Tsunade was actually a lizard person. Fake. This has to be _fake_.

First not at all, then all at once, realization washes over her like a gallon of cold water and she gasps, “is this why he’s so freakishly good at fixing the lawn mower?”

“He isn’t ‘freakishly good’, he’s just faster,” Kakashi pouts from behind her, still not over his stupid, hurt masculine pride in that element.

“No, he wasn’t faster, you just almost broke it before he had to fix your mess!” Sakura chides with a shake of her head before she turns her attention back to the others. “Seriously, is that why?”

“What, did you think he was chewing toothpicks for looks? Oh no, he’s _country_ ,” Yamato mocks again, barely able to hold back the laugh sitting in his throat while Genma shoots him looks that could kill.

“I mean, I grew up on a farm, that’s all. I really don’t see what’s the big deal,” the drummer shrugs, clearly embarrassed over how much of a fuss they’re making about this. As if he hadn’t gone through this ruthless mockery fifteen years ago already.

“ _No. Way,_ ” Sakura’s expression borders on shock again, now that he confirmed it personally, but her eyes are alight with wild joy beneath it all. “You _really_ grew up on a farm? You complained to me just last month about how the pollution and smog are bad for your dry skin! What, did you get an hour and a half to go through your fifty step hair care routine on the farm too? Don’t people get up at the ass crack of dawn where you lived? Jesus Christ, what else have you guys been hiding from me?”

Kakashi knows that tone of voice exactly. Despite her evident exasperation, Sakura is absolutely thrilled about this discovery. She’s always had a soft spot for this kind of thing and now that he’s thinking about it, maybe this is a _better_ anniversary present than the original song.

“You want to hear it?” Kakashi offers enthusiastically, already swiftly over his bruised ego, and her whole face lights up like the sun. Genma on the other hand looks almost pained as he clenches his jaw in annoyance. “Come on, farm boy, sing her something.”

“Don’t call me farm boy, we’ve been over this,” he growls and rolls the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other again, “Kakashi, seriously, I’m not in the mood to be a show pony right now.”

“Well, you would know all about that, wouldn’t you?” Iruka interjects and Yamato snorts violently into his coffee cup, spilling almost half of it on his shirt.

“Iruka, I swear to god, I’m going to break your face today if you don’t shut your mouth. I never did auctions and you— ah, forget it,” Genma groans out between gritted teeth, but Kakashi won’t let him off the hook so easily. Not with the way Sakura is practically bouncing in his lap with excitement. He could never deny her happiness, no matter the cost.

“Come on, don’t act like you didn’t use to torture us on road trips all the time. I think I know some of your songs better than my own,” Kakashi adds mildly, trying to appeal to his ego for his wife’s sake, and even Iruka and Yamato both nod grimly to that.

The drummer doesn’t seem any more inclined than before however and Sakura would be damned if she let the opportunity to hear him sing blues pass her by.

“Oh, Genma, _please_ ,” she pleads with a beguiling level of sincerity before he can wave off a second time. With her hands clasped in front of her she shoots him her prettiest, brightest smile, and honestly, he’s already done for even before she adds, “I didn’t know you sang at all and I’d _love_ to hear you.”

_Well fuck._ Who could say no to that, really?

Admitting defeat, Genma sighs at last and rubs a hand over his face. After a long beat of silent deliberation, he nods eventually. “Fine. But Yamato, you have to be my bass and hand me that guitar please.”

The bassist nods and Sakura digs her nails into Kakashi’s thigh, sort of as retaliation for keeping this secret so long and sort of as an outlet for the immense excitement she can’t show. Utterly floored, she turns her attention to Genma though, “You play guitar?”

He only shrugs, his eyes cast down onto the strings instead of her as if he is embarrassed with her undivided attention. It feels too good to be decent, too warm to be showered with her obvious curiosity and excitement and it feels a little dirty to have this all play out right in front of Kakashi. 

Especially after that last day at the hotel. They never spoke of it, never mentioned it, never acknowledged it in the slightest. And Genma has been losing sleep over it since. The night right after was genuine _torture_ ; every second of that night he expected Kakashi to kick down his door for making a move on his wife. He had sweat through his shirt, the sheets, down to the mattress. Most of the twilight hours before the sun rolls over the horizon, he had been on the verge of confessing himself, of freeing himself of this thorn in his side that has started to fester, but when dawn came and went and nothing was different–nothing _at all_ –Genma couldn’t bring himself to break the silence.

Every time the urge arose to pick apart that day and analyse every word he spoke with her, he pushed it away. It dredged up to many questions he had and still has no answers to. So he doesn’t allow himself to think of it. One persistent thought has been plaguing him though, but he doesn’t allow himself to believe it. It’s the same voice whispering it in the dead of the night that the Sakura of his nightmares always uses right before he wakes up. The voice tries to convince him that she is _using_ him. But he refuses to listen; not because he has any logical argument for it, but because his entire being revolts every time he gives this insidious thought the time of day.

Her enthusiasm when they talk, her gentleness with him that day, her fervent interest in him for the past year and her excitement now—it’s all too sincere to have a motive of hurt.

Whether to hurt him or _Kakashi_. Genma isn’t stupid and neither is Kakashi. He’d be an idiot not to notice something being different ever since that night he had kept her company in the bath. Kakashi had said that he is glad for them to have grown closer, but Genma still feels like there was something unsaid beneath that statement. Something hidden between the vowels that he is purposely holding back. As though he is keeping a secret. There is a tension in the air between Genma and her that is beyond the realm of friends, but Genma dare not name it. It can’t be, no matter how.

Then again, if Kakashi took offense, he’d put a stop to it instead of encouraging it like he is now, right? _Right_.

Letting out a soft, nervous chuckle, Genma finally raises his gaze to Sakura and shrugs again, “Not good, but good enough for this.”

As his soft, whiskey brown eyes settle on her, Sakura’s nails immediately dig harder into Kakashi’s thigh. It’s the same kind of death grip she uses on the sheets when Kakashi hits that extra sensitive spot, when he calls her brat or when Genma told her that ‘he really likes to please’. Nestling his head at her shoulder, her husband chuckles darkly into her hair, “Easy partner, don’t drip all over my jeans. He hasn’t even gotten started yet.”

While Genma confirms with Yamato which song they’ll play, Sakura catches Kakashi’s eye and the glint she finds in it is so full of promise, it makes her _dizzy_. Sucking in a deep breath she wills her heart to slow from its increasing gallop while a faint flush blooms on the sun kissed bridge of her nose. Still seated behind the drum set, Genma adjusts himself so that he can still tap the beat against the big drum with his foot with the acoustic guitar resting easily on his thigh. It’s been over a couple years since he played, but just the touch against the strings brings back memories immediately of his childhood. A warm, comforting memory if he wouldn’t be quite so nervous to play in front of Sakura right now. Stage fright was never an issue until now.

The only way out is through however, as his father always says, and when the first chords of the guitar strum, Sakura’s attention is captured. Her eyes lock with Genma’s easily and he is struck by her undivided attention. It hits him like a freight train and he almost forgets the lyrics to the song.

His muscle memory won’t let him down though and when the time comes he doesn’t even need to think. He just sings. The words taste familiar as his mother’s home cooked meals and he doesn’t even notice the accent of his childhood rolling right off his tongue again.

At the first sound of his voice, smooth and rich as fresh cream, Sakura’s heart skips a full beat, or three, straight.

“ _Hey porter, hey porter, would you tell me the time? How much longer will it be, ‘til we cross that Mason Dickson line? At daylight would ya tell that engineer to slow it down? Or better still just stop the train, ‘cause I wanna look around._ ”

His voice sounds almost foreign to her—she’s never heard him sing at all before and certainly not like _this_. Sakura suddenly feels like she doesn't know him one bit right then, and in a deep part of her heart that fact aches.

“ _Hey porter, hey porter, what time did you say? How much longer will it be, ‘til I can see the light of day?_ ”

About Kakashi she knows practically everything there is, but about Genma? She thought she did too, but evidently that was wrong. It’s safe to say that she has quite some catching up to do.

“ _When we hit Dixie, will you tell that engineer to ring his bell, and ask everybody that ain’t asleep to stand right up and yell.”_

Both the motions of his hand flying over the guitar strings and the deep, almost unfamiliar baritone of his voice have her completely awestruck and she is left to stare with her mouth growing slacker and slacker by the moment.

While Yamato gives her a moment to collect herself with the brief bass interjection between verses, Sakura is barely able to breathe and she welcomes Kakashi’s arm tightening around her like an anchor. His voice is low and dark and barely audible against the shell of her ear, but she can feel the vibrations of his words in her bones. “You like this, huh?”

“ _Hey porter, hey porter, it’s getting light outside. This old train is puffin’ smoke and I have to strain my eyes._ ”

She barely manages a nod as her teeth sink into her bottom lip when Genma’s voice fills the room again. But it gets worse, and Sakura is not prepared when he locks eyes with her. At the drop of his voice and the full drawl coming out, Sakura's stomach drops.

“ _Would’a ask that engineer if he will blow his whistle please, ‘cause I smell frost on cotton leaves, and I feel that Southern breeze._ ”

Stiff on Kakashi’s lap she lets out a near sigh at the back of her throat that hopefully only he heard. Across from her Genma doesn’t let on that he saw the twitch of her hips as she shifts on Kakashi’s thigh and simply continues with the song as if he was that train he’s singing about, tightly confined to the rails now. After the near endless teasing over where he came from that his friends had put him through for so many years, he never thought this particular part of him would draw such a positive reaction from her. It makes him feel so warm it borders on hot and his stomach tightens with tentative excitement that reflects in his voice. When she listens so happily, singing brings him joy again.

It feels like hot summer nights at home when she looks at him like that. The thrum of his heart may as well be the crescendo of cicadas.

“ _Hey porter, hey porter, please get my bags for me. I need nobody to tell me now, that we’re in Tennessee_.”

Every word that leaves his mouth makes her heart beat harder in her chest and while she’s still biting her bottom lip, she can’t help the corner of her mouth quirking up into a grin. Seeing him come to life as he sings makes her belly flutter and her breath shallow. Perhaps Kakashi knows this, but nothing is more attractive to her than pure elation. Joy and passion are straight up _erotic_ to her. Feeling at home with the familiar song, Genma holds her eye easily, almost cockily when he leans back with the beat, and Sakura can feel herself grow slick.

“ _Go tell that engineer to make that lonesome whistle scream. We’re not so far from home, so take it easy on the steam._ ”

Once again Sakura is glad for Tenzo’s brief bass bridge, giving her just a moment to breathe. That handsome fucker serenading her, has the audacity to wink at her on the last word of the verse and she is swiftly forced to break eye contact for fear of embarrassing herself royally. She wants to offer herself up to him like a cat in heat, and God help her, she really hopes he knows this deep down.

Is this how he felt when she did this to him? When she had the high ground and the confidence, on that beach and in the hotel bedroom the other day? Almost swooning, Sakura averts her eyes to her thighs and crosses them chastely, feeling for a moment like she just engaged in something lewd and filthy. So out in the open, at that. As if her husband could read her mind, she immediately feels Kakashi’s grin against her neck as he drags his teeth barely over her skin up to her earlobe, “Is he making you wet, baby?”

Concentrating back on the lyrics, Genma can only make out that Kakashi is whispering something in Sakura’s ear to which she nods softly, and her already fluorescent bright blush deepens even further. Over the sound of the guitar and the bass their exchange is unintelligible to him however, and maybe it’s better that way. A quiet part inside him muses that it could have been something dirty, something indecent. Her eyes shine with that ambiguous glint again, but that’s just hopeful thinking likely. Hopeful, dumb and hurtful thinking.

“ _Hey porter, hey porter, please open up the door. When they stop this train I’m gonna get off first, ‘cause I can’t wait no more._ ”

Though, when his eyes lock with hers again, that same voice grows louder in his mind and he’s almost certain then, that it _was_ something untoward, something that didn’t belong _here_. It really might not be so far fetched even, because the shade of her irises that greets him is not her usual jade.

It’s _pine_ again. That burning pine green that he knows too well by now. The shade of pine that has been haunting him for a year now. It is the one he got far too painfully close to just last week. The one he can identify with certainty now as all consuming _lust._

It’s the shade of green that makes him hope.

And for once it doesn’t pain to hope; there is no room for pain when she looks at him like this.

“ _Tell that engineer I said thanks a lot and I didn't mind the fare. I’m gonna set my feet on Southern soil and breathe that Southern air._ ”

His voice drops so exquisitely low at the final end of the verse it makes Sakura’s stomach flip in every direction of the wind. This has absolutely no right to turn her on in this way— _it’s_ country _music for crying out loud_ —but she can feel her thighs stick together and sweat bead up at her lower back. She still feels robbed of their almost kiss and it’s agonizing how easily they both ignored it up until now.

As the chords of the acoustic and bass guitar ring out, she feels like she can finally take her first full breath again and she almost laughs in relief while she applauds with shaky hands.

Genma doesn’t say a word as his breath now suddenly sticks to the back of his throat, but Kakashi easily takes over for him. Not missing even a single beat, he claps a hand on Sakura’s upper thigh and grins a little too smugly, “See? Country as hell.”

“Yeah, no shit,” she snarks and her laugh sounds like bells in Genma’s ears. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I actually really loved that.”

The only thing she loves even more is the bashful expression overtaking Genma’s face at her compliment. With eyes bright and shining, she slides on her husband’s thigh forward, near gasping at the pleasant friction provided by lace and denim and grins from ear to ear, “will you sing me another?”

Both Iruka and Yamato groan at her request and Kakashi’s laugh shakes her whole frame. It dissipates her slick arousal at least momentarily as Genma’s features grow soft while his grin grows wide. “Anything you want, sweetheart.”

“Sing her ‘Daddy Sang Bass’,” Kakashi prompts and Sakura perks up in excitement on his knee like a child on Christmas Day.

“No,” Iruka hisses from his place beside the empty guitar holder but Genma laughs.

Even if Iruka sends him a murderous glare as he crosses his arms, the drummer teases without abandon. Payback is sweet after all. “Only because you have to sing Mama’s part.”

“It’s really not our fault that you have the highest voice out of all of us,” Yamato now piles on too. He’s slowly warming up to the whole ordeal, mostly because Ino’s words still echo in his head: _We have to put that poor guy out of his misery._

And even if he refuses to get involved in whatever they’re planning, he’s been finding Sakura and Kakashi to become more and more brazen, yet Genma still won’t get the fucking hint. As the usual quiet observer, Yamato has no difficulty acknowledging that something transpired between Genma and Sakura when he sang, and as a friend he really should help where he can. In that vein, he remembers that he still needs to speak to Kakashi about this. If they’re not gonna clue him in any time soon and he continues to suffer like a dog, the bassist might do it personally.

Putting her persuasion skills to use again, Sakura now directs her big, round doll eyes at Iruka and pleads, “Please, just this one! I’ll let you guys get back to work after this, I swear.”

Since other than Genma, the guitarist is _not_ entirely smitten with the lead singer’s wife, his deliberation period takes considerably longer and it requires a stern glare from Yamato, paired with a less than subtle head nod over to the drummer, to convince him.

“Fine,” he grumbles eventually, picking up the electric guitar as he raises a finger warningly. “But this is the last I have to hear of this or participate in. For at least a month.”

“Fine,” the chorus sounds and Genma’s fingers fly over the strings again.

The first chords ring and Sakura leans back against Kakashi’s chest swaying softly to the beat. As Genma’s voice rises again, she muses to herself that she could listen to him all day, just the way she could listen to Kakashi. Maybe she’ll be lucky soon and they’ll both sing for her.

“ _I remember when I was a lad, times were hard and things were bad, but there’s a silver linin’ behind every cloud. Just four people, that’s all we were. Tryin’ to make a livin’ out of black land dirt, but we had get together in a family circle singin’ loud._ ”

She should see it coming when Kakashi’s fingers dig into her hip like a seatbelt and Genma’s grin grows so wide that it makes her stomach flutter, but when their instruments stop and Genma breaks into the first line of the refrain, her heart stops dead in its tracks. 

“ _Daddy sang bass._ ”

The sudden drop of his voice to such a low, gravelly, _dark_ bass strikes her like lightning and her mouth falls open in a gasp. It’s drowned out by Iruka piping up and Kakashi and Yamato joining right after, but the shiver running over her skin can’t be suppressed. Her husband’s fingertips running over the hem of her skirt only amplify it, and Sakura knows without a doubt that this time Genma knows exactly what is happening to her.

His attention is trained so closely on her it makes her sweat and for once it isn’t just _her_ eyes growing dark. What was whiskey and amber when she walked in, is now hickory and smoke. It seems to her now like he has found his groove. As though he’s found the same erotic elation of confidence she had when she put a show on for him, and his voice doesn’t even hitch while he just continues to sing that damn song.

Is that idiot finally catching on?

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who’s drunk now and who’s excited for the next chapter? 👀 raise both hands for all of the above
> 
> please leave a review if you can <3 I love hearing your thoughts and they actually keep me alive when I cry over repeating the same wording and the same allegory for the nth time


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